BV  4010  .C629   

Watson,  John,  1850-1907, 
The  clerical  life 


The  Clerical  Life 


THE   CLERICAL  LIFE 

A  Series  of  Letters  to  Ministers 

/ 

BY 

John  Watson^  D.D. 
Prof.  Marcus  Dods^  D.D. 
Prin.  T.  C.  Edwards,  D.D. 
Prof.  James  Denneyy  D.D. 
T.  H.  Darlow,  M.A. 
T.  G.  Selby. 

W.  Robertson  Nicoll,  LL.D. 
J.  T.  Stoddarf. 


NEW     YORK 

DODD,  MEAD,  AND  COMPANY 

149-151  Fifth  Avenue 

1898 


PAGE 


CONTENTS 
I 

To  A  Minister  who  finds  that  some  of  his  most 

ATTRACTIVE  YOUNG   MeN   ARE  SCEPTICAL, 
II 

To  A  YOUNG  Minister  who  is  given  to  Anecdotage 
IN  the  Pulpit, 


Ill 

To  A  young   Minister  who  has  been  invited  to 

preach  in  a  vacant  Church 33 

IV 

To  A  Minister  whose  Sermons  last  an  Hour,       .        43 


PAGE 


vi  THE  CLERICAL  LIFE 

V 
To   A    Minister   who   has    no    Theology    in    his 

Sermons, 55 

VI 

To  a  Minister  whose  Preaching  is  a  Failure,      .        67 

VII 
To  a  Minister  who  is   unsuccessful  with  Chil- 
dren,         79 

VIII 

To  a  Ministerial  Sir  Willoughby  Patterns,         .        93 

IX 

To  a  Minister  who  regards  himself  as  a  Prophet 

OF  Criticism, 105 

X 

From    a    Minister  who    is    asked  to   many   Tea- 

Parties, 117 


CONTENTS  vii 

XI 

PAGE 

To  A  Young  Minister   who   refused   to  wear  a 

White  Tie, 129 

XII 

To  A  Minister  who  becomes   Periodically   'Run 

Down,' 139 

xin 

To  A  Minister   troubled    by    Intellectual   Dis- 
parities IN  his  Congregation,    .        .        .        .151 

XIV 

To  A  Minister  who  has  studied  in  Germany,        .      167 

XV 

To  A  Divinity  Student, 179 

XVI 

To  A  Martyr  of  Procrastinating  and  Pessimistic 

Moods  in  Sermonising, 191 


viii  THE  CLERICAL  LIFE 

XVII 

PAGE 

To  A  Minister  who  objects  to  'Wandering'  in 

August,  .        ,       . 211 

XVIII 
To  A  Brother  smarting  under  a  Bad  Time,  .        .      223 

XIX 

To  a  Minister  who  has  warned  his  People  against 

'Intellectual  Preaching,' 235 

XX 

To  A  Minister  who  inclines  to  Condescension,    .      247 


I 


To  a  Minister  who  finds  that  some  of  his 

most  attractive  Young  Men 

are  Sceptical 


To  A  Minister  who  finds  that  some  of 

HIS   MOST   ATTRACTIVE  YOUNG   MEN 

ARE  Sceptical 

My  dear  X., — You  tell  me  in  your  last  interesting 
letter,  what  I  am  by  no  means  surprised  to  learn, 
that  some  of  the  finest,  most  companionable,  and 
most  serviceable  young  men  in  your  congregation 
are  sceptical.  Yours  is  not  an  unprecedented 
experience.  In  an  age  in  which  everything  is 
called  in  question,  and  each  man  has  to  find  his 
own  way  to  his  own  measure  of  faith,  it  is  not 
surprising  that  many  intelligent  and  earnest  minds 
should  spend  some  considerable  time  in  hesitation, 
doubt,  and  questioning.  The  wonder  rather  is 
that  so  many  find  a  resting-place  on  terra  firma. 
It  is  a  sative  qui  pent,  as  in  Paul's  shipwreck, 
*some  on  boards  and  some  on  broken  pieces  of 
the  old  ship ' ;  the  marvel  still  being  that  so 
many  escape  *safe  to  land.'     Scepticism  is  the 

8 


4  THE  CLERICAL  LIFE 

price  we  have  to  pay  for  the  advances  we  are 
making  in  knowledge.  It  results  from  the  difficulty 
of  reconciling  the  new  truth  with  the  old.  It  is  one 
element  in  the  *  growing  pains  '  of  the  world.  It 
is  inevitable,  and  in  one  aspect  both  satisfactory 
and  hopeful. 

Scepticism  exists  in  so  many  different  forms 
and  strengths,  it  has  such  a  variety  of  phases  and 
stages,  and  it  arises  from  causes  so  diverse,  that  it 
is  impossible  to  recommend  a  treatment  which 
will  be  universally  applicable  and  effective.  That 
eminent  specialist  in  scepticism,  the  Rev.  A.  J. 
Harrison,  divides  unbelievers  into  no  fewer  than 
ten  classes,  according  as  their  mental  attitude  is 
identified  with  Indifference,  Naturalism,  Doubt, 
Antipathy,  Atheism,  Pantheism,  Deism,  Agnos- 
ticism, Positivism,  or  Secularism.  Such  lists  are 
somewhat  appalling,  as  they  present  to  the  mind 
a  more  definite  conception  of  the  magnitude  of 
the  evil,  and  as  we  recognise  that  even  in  small 
and  ordinary  congregations  specimens  of  these 
various  types  are  to  be  found  in  a  more  or  less 
developed  form,  you  will  not,  I  feel  sure,  expect 
me   to  enter  into  a  detailed   description  of  the 


THE  CLERICAL  LIFE  5 

treatment  which  each  special  case  demands,  but 
will  be  satisfied  if  I  merely  set  down  some 
general  principles  applicable  to  all 

When  confronted  with  actual  instances  of 
scepticism,  we  at  once  perceive  that  some  of  them 
are  rather  due  to  moral  causes,  while  others  have 
their  root  in  mental  perplexity  or  mere  ignorance. 
The  former  are  the  most  baffling  and  the  most 
trying  to  the  temper  :  incurable  save  by  a  moral 
revolution.  If  a  man  flaunts  his  unbelief,  and  is 
glad  to  find  a  pretext  for  prolonging  it,  what 
he  needs  is  that  enlargement  of  view  and  that 
deepening  of  nature  which  come  with  a  sense  of 
sin.  A  broken  heart  is  the  pre-requisite  for  any 
fruitful  consideration  of  spiritual  truth.  This  we 
must  aim  at  producing  by  our  preaching,  but  only 
God's  providence  and  Spirit  can  accomplish  the 
needful  change.  Similarly  it  is  only  the  hand  of 
God  in  the  life  and  spirit  of  the  individual  which 
can  scatter  the  gloom  which  through  untoward  and 
distressing  calamity  has  settled  on  the  entire  out- 
look and  rendered  everything  dim  and  uncertain. 
It  is  in  such  circumstances  that  a  minister  reaps 
the  benefit  of  having  gained  the  confidence  of  his 


6  THE  CLERICAL  LIFE 

people,  and  of  having  lived  on  terms  of  frank 
intimacy  with  them.  For  apart  from  previous 
friendship  it  is  difficult  to  find  access  to  a  bruised 
and  embittered  spirit ;  whereas,  if  it  has  become 
natural  to  speak  frankly,  a  word  boldly  spoken  in 
season  may  be  the  turning-point  in  a  soul's  history. 
And  in  cases  where  the  scepticism  is  the  result 
rather  of  mental  than  of  moral  causes,  friendliness 
is  still  the  prime  requisite  in  a  minister — not  a 
professed  or  professional,  but  a  real  and  hearty 
interest  in  the  questionings  of  the  perplexed. 
This  friendliness  not  only  makes  your  resources 
available  for  the  doubter,  but  it  is  itself  a 
material  encouragement  and  aid  to  him.  In 
your  faith  he  has  a  reminder  of  the  possibility 
of  believing,  and  this  unconsciously  breeds  hope 
in  him.  Your  sympathy  preserves  him  from 
counting  himself  an  outcast  from  the  Church, 
and  so  saves  him  from  becoming  soured  and 
reckless.  To  utter  our  doubts  and  definitely 
place  them  before  another  mind  is  often  a  long 
step  towards  their  dismissal.  Faith,  moreover,  is 
a  more  contagious  quality  than  we  sometimes 
imagine ;  and  at  all  times  it  is  well  to  remember 


THE  CLERICAL  LIFE  7 

the  maxim:  Exemplo  plus  quam  ratione  vivimus; 
a  maxim  which  is  true  even  of  those  who  deny 
and  denounce  its  possible  application  to  them- 
selves. 

If  you  are  to  be  as  helpful  to  the  sceptical  as 
you  desire,  you  must  determine  with  some 
precision  what  are  the  necessary  contents  of  the 
Christian  creed.  On  a  liberal  interpretation  of 
Christian  faith,  is  this  or  that  man,  after  all,  a 
sceptic  ?  Sceptical  of  some  things  which  others 
believe,  we  must  all  always  be.  Certain  know- 
ledge regarding  all  Divine  truth  is  impossible. 
And  we  may  be  in  the  unhappy  position  of 
demanding  so  much  faith  as  to  repel  men  from 
Christianity,  even  while  we  seek  to  recommend  it 
to  them.  Where  is  the  line  to  be  drawn  between 
the  scepticism  that  is  inevitable  and  the  scepticism 
that  is  detrimental  and  unchristian  ?  Much  may, 
I  think,  be  learned  from  our  Lord's  method.  He, 
by  the  nature  of  the  case,  was  required  to  deal 
with  men  at  every  stage  of  belief  or  unbelief 
And  the  inexorable,  explicit  and  exacting 
demands  He  made  upon  men  ethically  are  not 
more  remarkable  than  the  narrow  limits  within 


8  THE  CLERICAL  LIFE 

which  He  required  acceptance  of  theological 
propositions.  He  was  abundantly  satisfied  when 
Peter  and  the  rest  had  been  led  on  to  the  convic- 
tion that  He  was  the  Christ,  and  on  this  article 
of  the  creed  He  founded  His  Church.  It  is  by- 
adherence  to  that  confession  that  the  gates  of 
hell  are  rendered  powerless.  This  simplicity  of 
creed  is  thrown  into  the  most  striking  relief  by 
the  absolute  character  of  the  demands  made  on 
the  personal  devotedness  of  His  followers.  The 
ministers  of  Christ  must  follow  Him  in  insisting 
that  the  same  relation  be  maintained  between  the 
claims  of  Christ  on  the  personal  attachment  and 
obedience  of  men,  and  all  demands  on  their 
mental  acknowledgment  of  propositions  regarding 
Him  and  His  work.  The  minister  of  Christ  has 
no  right  to  replace  stumbling-blocks  which  He 
Himself  was  careful  to  remove.  He  has  no  right 
to  make  the  entrance  into  the  kingdom  straiter 
than  Christ  made  it.  The  question  being,  not  how 
to  perfect,  but  how  to  win  disciples,  it  is  unwise  and 
it  is  unlawful  to  demand  belief  in  Inspiration,  or 
in  a  definite  theory  of  the  Atonement,  or  in  other 
doctrines  which  are  sometimes  reckoned  essentials. 


THE  CLERICAL  LIFE  9 

If  these  doctrines  are  true  and  helpful  to  the 
Christian  life,  then  the  disciple  will  find  them 
out,  but  to  demand  acceptance  of  them  at  the 
gate  is  to  drive  honest  and  self-knowing  men 
away.  Does  a  man  accept  Jesus  as  the  Christ? 
This  is  the  Apostolic  test  Does  a  man  see  in 
Jesus  the  representative  of  God  on  earth  and  the 
true  head  and  Redeemer  of  men,  and  does  he 
personally  own  this  leadership?  Then  he  is  a 
Christian  of  the  New  Testament  type.  His  faith 
is  radical,  his  scepticism  superficial. 

In  thus  dealing  with  supposed  sceptics,  you 
must  be  prepared  to  be  misunderstood  and  to  be 
misrepresented.  The  most  notable  attempt  in 
our  time  to  reconcile  Christian  faith  with  advanc- 
ing science  was  branded  as  itself  destructive  of 
the  faith.  When  Mr.  Gore  and  his  associates 
strove  to  make  the  entrance  to  the  kingdom  wide 
enough  to  admit  men  of  science,  and  issued  Lux 
Mundi  with  the  intention  of  showing  that  truth  is 
one  and  Christian,  Archdeacon  Denison  charac- 
terised the  book  as  '  the  most  grievous  specimen  of 
defence  of  truth  of  all  those  I  have  had  to  contend 
against,   and   the   most    ruinous    under    all   the 


lo  THE  CLERICAL  LIFE 

circumstances  of  its  production,  a  blow  ab  intra 
without  parallel/  So  it  is  always.  To  reach  a 
helping  hand  to  the  sceptical  is  commonly  under- 
stood to  be  treachery.  Eating  with  publicans 
and  sinners  is  in  some  forms  of  it  still  condemned 
by  many  orthodox  people.  In  some  critical  times 
almost  in  the  same  proportion  as  you  give  your 
sympathy  and  help  to  the  sceptical  must  you  lose 
the  respect  of  Christian  people  and  endure  the 
suspicion  and  coldness  of  former  friends.  You 
must  therefore  count  the  cost  of  seeking  truth  for 
yourself  and  carrying  to  those  in  darkness  the 
light  you  have  yourself  found.  '  All  things  on 
earth  have  their  price ;  and  for  truth  we  pay 
the  dearest.  We  barter  it  for  love  and  sympathy. 
The  road  to  honour  is  paved  with  thorns  ;  but  on 
the  path  to  truth,  at  every  step  you  set  your 
foot  down  on  your  own  heart' 

You  must  also  be  prepared  for  disappointment. 
Arguments  which  to  you  seem  conclusive  produce 
no  result.  Suggestions  which  have  brought  relief 
to  your  mind  take  no  root  in  the  mind  of  another. 
And  yet  it  is  beyond  question  that  much  may  be 
accomplished  by  judicious  counsel,  whether  in  the 


THE  CLERICAL  LIFE  n 

pulpit  or  in  private.  In  an  interesting  letter 
to  the  late  Dean  Stanley,  Mr.  J.  R.  Green,  the 
historian,  tells  him  that  in  his  lecture-room  he 
was  saved  from  scepticism.  He  had  gone  up  to 
Oxford  a  hard  reader  and  a  pronounced  and 
enthusiastic  High  Churchman.  But  two  years' 
residence  found  him  idle  and  irreligious.  *  High 
Churchism  fell  with  a  great  crash,  and  left 
nothing  behind — nothing  but  a  vague  reverence 
for  goodness.*  It  was  the  wise  and  kindly 
liberalism  of  Stanley  which  built  up  for  him 
once  more  a  Christian  faith.  And  when  Renan 
tells  us  that  with  his  belief  in  the  inspiration  and 
infallibility  of  every  word  of  the  Old  Testament 
he  felt  constrained  to  throw  overboard  the  whole 
orthodox  creed,  we  cannot  read  his  naive  con- 
fessions without  being  amazed  that  a  man  of  his 
acuteness  and  knowledge  should  so  confound  the 
essentials  with  the  accidents  of  Christianity,  and 
without  wishing  that  there  had  been  at  his  elbow 
a  judicious  friend  who  had  already  thought  his  way 
through  these  morning  mists.  No  doubt  contro- 
versial discussion  is  apt  to  generate  more  heat 
than  light.     But  friendly  and  natural  talk  about 


12  THE  CLERICAL  LIFE 

the  subjects  of  greatest  interest  to  earnest  men  at 
the  very  least  prevents  scepticism  from  hardening 
into  dogmatic  unbelief,  and  may  in  the  most 
unexpected  manner  prove  of  critical  importance. 

Conversation  of  this  kind  will  of  course  guide 
itself;  but  it  is  especially  needful  to  urge  upon 
the  sceptical  the  need  of  personal  and  first-hand 
knowledge.  The  ignorance  of  Christianity  which 
is  manifested  even  by  leading  Agnostics  is 
amazing  and  perplexing.  And  the  simplicity 
with  which  many  persons  accept  the  crude  state- 
ments made  in  popular  literature  is  the  chief 
source  of  danger.  The  representative  of  Christi- 
anity must  if  possible  hit  the  mean  between 
turning  a  deaf  ear  to  science  and  credulously 
accepting  as  proved  every  assertion  of  any 
scientific  man.  He  must  inculcate  and  himself 
exemplify  the  patient  prudence  which  is  prepared 
to  give  a  cordial  welcome  to  all  truth,  but  which 
can  wait  until  suppositions  and  inferences  and 
speculations  are  either  proved  or  disproved.  To 
accept  everything  which  at  present  is  advanced 
under  the  name  of  Biblical  Criticism  is  as  pre- 
judiced and  unwise  and  perhaps  as  dangerous  as 


THE  CLERICAL  LIFE  13 

to  condemn  all  criticism  and  repudiate  all  its 
conclusions.  It  is  part  of  the  ministerial  function 
to  sift  truth  from  error  in  the  results  of  modern 
investigation,  and,  without  annoying  and  perplex- 
ing the  bulk  of  the  people  who  have  little  interest 
in  such  matters,  to  aid  the  lay  mind  in  distin- 
guishing between  what  is  proved  and  what  is  as 
yet  merely  conjectured. 

With  a  certain  small  class  of  minds  something 
may  be  accomplished  by  recommending  relevant 
reading.  One  never  can  forget  the  experience  of 
the  late  George  Bowen,  one  of  the  most  remark- 
able and  original,  as  he  was  certainly  one  of  the 
most  convinced  Christians  of  the  century.  By  a 
singular  accident  Paley's  Evidences  came  into  his 
hands.  *  He  would  not  read  it ;  he  knew  all 
about  the  evidences  of  Christianity  ;  he  had  long 
ago  finally  settled  that  question.  Before  putting 
it  away,  however,  he  glanced  at  the  first  sentence, 
and  was  arrested  by  it.  He  read  one  page,  and 
another,  and  another ;  was  pleased  with  the  style 
and  the  candour  of  the  writer,  and  at  last  sat 
down  and  read  a  good  portion  of  the  book.  To 
his  surprise  he  found  he  was  beginning  to  take  a 


14  THE  CLERICAL  LIFE 

new  view  of  the  evidences,  and  then  shut  up  the 
book,  and  put  it  aside,  afraid  of  being  surprised 
into  any  change  of  belief  The  book  ultimately 
prevailed.  Perhaps  those  who  have  fought  their 
own  way  to  a  believing  position  are  apt  to  under- 
rate the  influence  of  books.  They  remember  how 
irritated  they  themselves  were  by  inadequate 
explanations,  inept  reflections,  irrelevant  argu- 
ment. Still,  it  is  unquestionable  that  studious 
and  candid  minds  find  in  books  a  more  complete 
solution  of  current  difficulties  than  they  can 
expect  either  in  conversation  or  in  sermons. 
Fisher,  Newman,  Smyth,  Wace,  Harrison,  Row, 
and  others  have  treated  various  parts  of  the 
evidences  in  a  manner  which  cannot  but  appeal 
to  those  who  are  really  seeking  truth. 

At  present  a  peculiar  phase  of  scepticism  pre- 
vails, which  perhaps  deserves  a  word  to  itself. 
Among  the  working  classes  there  seems  to  be  a 
growing  resentment  against  the  Church  for  its 
supposed  or  real  non-interference  in  labour  dis- 
putes. Christianity  is  being  judged  by  its  power 
to  lighten  the  burden  and  right  the  wrongs  of  the 
oppressed ;    and   in   many  instances  it  is  being 


THE  CLERICAL  LIFE  15 

rejected  as  helpless  for  present  needs,  promising 
much  but  performing  little.  This  is  precisely  the 
scepticism  of  John  the  Baptist.  He  lay  in  his 
dungeon  listening  for  the  crash  of  revolution  and 
the  shout  of  the  armed  followers  of  the  Messiah 
sweeping  oppression  from  the  land,  and  all  he 
heard  was  the  indistinct  rumour  of  a  few  sick 
healed  and  one  or  two  old  blind  beggars  restored. 
He  could  not  understand  why  nothing  decisive 
was  immediately  accomplished.  He  began  to 
doubt  whether  indeed  Jesus  could  after  all  be  the 
Messiah.  John  had  to  learn,  and  many  in  our 
own  day  have  to  learn,  that  the  method  of  Jesus 
is  not  superficial,  but  radical ;  that  it  begins  at 
the  beginning  of  all  evil  and  slowly  works  its  way 
to  results  that  are  permanent.  To  one  who 
demanded  the  interference  of  Jesus  He  replied, 
*  Who  made  me  a  Judge  over  you  ? '  But  at  the 
same  time  He  lodged  such  principles  in  human 
society  as  produce  justice  and  charity.  He  does 
not  strive  nor  cry.  He  does  not  rule  by  spasmodic 
interference  or  measures  of  violence.  His  methods 
are  inward,  spiritual,  and  gradual,  and,*  Blessed  is 
he  whosoever  is  not  offended  in  Him.' — Yours, 
etc.,  Zeta. 


II 

To  a  Young  Minister  who  is  given  to 
Anecdotage  in  the  Pulpit 


To  A  Young  Minister  who  is  given  to 
Anecdotage  in  the  Pulpit 

Dear  Dryvell, — It  was  a  happy  touch  of  Lord 
Beaconsfield  to  describe  an  elderly  man  as  in  his 
anecdotage,  but  it  struck  me  when  I  had  the 
pleasure  of  hearing  you  preach  last  Sunday  that 
you  had  arrived  at  this  stage  somewhat  pre- 
maturely and  not  very  successfully. 

Your  sermon  was  less  than  forty  minutes,  and 
within  that  space  you  included  six  anecdotes, 
given  with  lavish  conversational  detail,  and  you 
also  displayed  a  wealth  of  anecdotal  allusion 
which  inferred  on  the  part  of  your  hearers  a 
flattering  remembrance  of  past  sermons  and  a 
minute  acquaintance  with  the  more  flamboyant 
religious  literature  of  our  day.  References  to 
your  remarkable  experiences  in  evangelistic  work 
would  lead  any  one,  unacquainted  with  the 
generous  use  of  language  characteristic  of  your 

19 


20  THE  CLERICAL  LIFE 

school,  to  believe  either  that  you  were  fifty  years 
old,  or  that  you  had  begun  to  labour  for  the 
spiritual  good  of  your  fellow-creatures  at  the 
early  age  of  five.  Perhaps  one  may  not  be  far 
out  in  the  calculation  that  you  are  about  twenty- 
eight,  in  which  case  your  attached  people  have 
some  cause  for  anxiety  as  they  anticipate  the 
future,  when  you  are,  say,  sixty,  and  begin  to 
look  at  them  from  above  your  spectacles.  It 
comes  to  the  rule  of  three,  and  although  I  judge 
that  your  training  in  mathematics  has  not  been 
severe,  this  is  an  easy  application.  If  your 
preaching  be  in  the  proportion  of  fifty  per  cent, 
of  fluid  to  fifty  per  cent,  of  solid  when  you  have 
hardly  left  college  and  the  habit  of  study  must 
still  have  some  hold,  what  will  it  be  when  you 
have  ceased  to  assimilate  new  ideas  and  the 
sinews  of  the  mind  are  relaxed  ?  It  works  out 
five  per  cent,  of  instruction  floating  in  ninety-five 
per  cent,  of  fiction,  and  suggests  the  condition  of 
those  public  schools,  if  you  will  pardon  an  alien 
illustration,  where  the  legend  runs  that  the  boys 
have  a  break  of  five  minutes  every  hour  for  Latin, 
Very  likely  you  will  harden  yourself  against 


THE  CLERICAL  LIFE  21 

this  well-intended  remonstrance  with  the  reflec- 
tion that  its  writer  is  a  superior  person  who  sniffs 
at  a  popularity  he  has  never  been  able  to  obtain, 
and  with  the  evident  fact  that  you  have  filled 
your  church.  It  was  only  yesterday  that  an 
expansive  father  congratulated  you  because  he 
had  no  difficulty  now  in  bringing  his  young 
people  to  service,  and  the  only  complaint  at  the 
supper  table  was  the  shortness  of  the  sermon. 
*  You  give  it  us  tasty/  something  like  that  were 
his  words,  *and  the  public  demands  flavour  now- 
adays.' You  winced  for  the  moment  under  the 
form  of  the  worthy  man's  eulogy,  but  you  had 
some  just  pride  last  Sunday  in  his  well-filled  pew. 
It  happened  that  a  family  of  this  kind  sat  before 
me,  and  there  is  no  doubt  they  were  deeply 
interested,  the  father  leaning  forward  and  smiling 
up  the  pew  at  your  racier  sallies,  while  a  daughter 
underlined  your  points  with  nudges.  You  lost 
them  once  in  the  interval  between  the  anecdotes 
— when  the  son  yawned  almost  audibly,  and  the 
girls  compared  notes  by  code  on  a  neighbouring 
bonnet — but  you  had  them  well  in  hand  with  that 
vivacious  proposal  scene.      It  gave  a  quiet  man 


22  THE  CLERICAL  LIFE 

pause,  but  it  was  certainly  memorable,  and  one 
was  glad  that  your  impossible  application  to 
personal  religion  was  quite  obscured  by  the  spray 
of  merriment.  One  was  a  little  concerned  by  the 
contemptuous  look  on  a  young  man's  face — clever 
face  too,  Herbert  Spencer  man,  I  should  say ; 
and  the  sigh  of  an  old  saint  near  me — leaves  of 
his  Bible  worn  thin  at  the  Psalms  and  St.  John's 
Gospel — would  have  made  you  sad.  No  one 
looked  at  the  clock,  but  the  people  who  never 
think  of  a  clock  went  empty  away. 

You  ought,  however,  to  be  congratulated  on 
the  reserves  of  your  anecdotage,  which  were  most 
grateful  to  one  at  least  of  your  audience.  No 
call  was  made  on  the  saint — Baxter  or  Newton 
in  England,  Rutherford  or  Chalmers  in  Scotland 
— who  saw  a  murderer  going  to  his  doom,  and 
said  :  *  Had  it  not  been  for  grace,  there  goes  [fill 
in] ; '  or  on  the  dramatic  English  Consul,  who 
wrapped  the  Union  Jack  round  an  afflicted  coun- 
tryman and  dared  the  native  authorities  to  fire ; 
or  the  French  soldier  who  whispered  to  the  sur- 
geon :  *  An  inch  farther,  and  you  touch  the 
Emoeror ; '   or  the  conscript  who  bought  a  sub- 


THE  CLERICAL  LIFE  23 

stitute,  and  objected  very  properly  to  be  called 
again — who  have  long  made  tableaux  vivants  for 
the  illustration  of  various  doctrines.  It  is  pleasant 
to  know  that,  in  your  opinion,  these  war-worn 
veterans  should  be  released  from  active  service, 
and  sent  into  a  well-earned  rest. 

One  does  not,  of  course,  mean  that  the  infal- 
lible criterion  of  an  anecdote  is  its  newness ;  for, 
indeed,  it  is  very  often  its  oldness.  Anecdotes 
and  wines  have  this  likeness,  that  the  thinnest 
must  be  taken  in  their  youth,  for  they  will  not 
last ;  but  the  richest  are  grateful  to  the  palate  in 
their  mature  age.  Plutarch's  Lives  contain  a 
lode  which  the  pulpit  has  never  worked,  although 
there  is  plenty  of  gold  among  the  quartz.  The 
mystics  had  the  most  lovely  parables.  The  *  ages 
of  Faith '  have  left  us  legends  which  are  perfect 
sermons,  the  fragrant  essence  of  fields  of  flowers. 
Ancient  martyrology,  the  lives  of  chief  saints,  the 
select  annals  of  the  Foreign  Mission  crusade,  lie 
to  a  man's  hand.  Stories  gathered  from  such 
quarters  have  in  them  a  certain  distinction  that 
defies  ridicule  and  refuses  to  be  vulgarised.  No 
theme   is   too  august   for  their  introduction,  no 


24  THE  CLERICAL  LIFE 

class  is  either  so  cultured  or  so  simple  that  it  will 
refuse  them  hearing.  One  or  two  exceptions 
may  be  made ;  for  even  the  Sistine  Madonna 
becomes  a  weariness  when  thrust  upon  your  eyes 
from  every  print-shop,  not  because  of  antiquity, 
but  because  of  repetition.  It  may  be  taken  for 
granted  that  your  hearers  are  painfully  familiar 
with  the  age  of  the  martyr  Polycarp,  and  that  the 
derivation  of  Christopher  has  been  finally  lodged 
in  the  mind  of  the  religious  public.  But,  after  all 
deductions,  the  riches  are  immense.  Perhaps,  to 
take  only  two  instances  at  random,  because  they 
happened  to  have  been  finely  handled  by  Whittier, 
your  people  have  not  heard  of  the  *Gift  of 
Tritemius'  or  the  story  of  '  Barclay  of  Ury.'  It 
is  only  possible  to  indicate  the  outer  door  of  this 
treasure-house,  but  I  am  tempted  to  add  that 
many  a  commonplace  sermon  might  be  perfumed, 
as  if  it  had  been  kept  in  a  sandal-wood  box,  by 
the  *  Fiorretti  di  San  Francesco.* 

Preachers  of  your  school  are  at  a  double  dis- 
advantage in  the  use  of  contemporary  anecdotage. 
The  most  acceptable  anecdotes  have  not  sprung 
full-grown  from  life,  but  from  some  artist's  brain. 


THE  CLERICAL  LIFE  25 

Some  friend,  with  confidence  in  this  man's  powers, 
has  brought  him  the  raw  material,  which  is  usually 
either  American  or  Scotch — in  a  few  very  grate- 
ful cases  French — and  this  expert  weaves  the 
confused  mass  into  a  piquant  pattern,  each  point 
of  colour  and  shape  having  been  carefully  con- 
sidered. The  finished  product  is  admirable  in 
an  after-dinner  speech,  or  in  the  causerie  of  a 
monthly — it  might  even  be  introduced  into  a 
political  or  ecclesiastical  speech,  although  the 
experiment  would  be  risky,  as  those  audiences 
have  a  fruity  palate — but  it  is  manifestly  unfit  for 
the  pulpit.  Possibly  its  subject  might  be  religion 
— the  two  best  anecdotes  of  the  last  six  months 
have  been  profoundly  religious.  The  style  is, 
however,  an  insuperable  objection  to  such  anec- 
dotes.    They  are  works  of  art. 

Your  anecdotes  are  free  from  this  charge,  but 
they  have  no  corresponding  compensation.  One 
has  no  conviction  that  they  are  true.  It  is  not 
merely  that  you  laid  the  scene  of  one  of  your 
most  moving  tales  in  the  East  End  of  London, 
while  the  'Scottish  Chrysostom '  gave  it  two 
weeks  ago  as  his  own  experience  in  the  Canon- 


26  THE  CLERICAL  LIFE 

gate  of  Edinburgh,  or  that  you  yourself  varied 
the  hero's  name  from  John  to  James  within  five 
minutes.  One  discrepancy  might  be  really  a 
coincidence,  the  other  a  slip  of  the  tongue.  What 
blights  religious  anecdotage  and  makes  it  an 
offence  is  its  apparent  unreality.  Nine  men  out 
of  ten,  at  the  lowest,  believe  it  an  absolute  inven- 
tion— and  very  poor  at  that — and  they  can  find 
internal  evidence  for  their  faith.  An  anecdote 
may  pass  as  art  without  being  true  (in  the  witness- 
box  sense)  or  as  truth  without  being  art  (in  the 
picture-gallery  sense);  but  what  if  there  be 
neither  art  nor  truth  ? 

Let  me  assure  you  at  once  that  I  do  not  bring 
any  charge  of  personal  falsehood,  for  the  thought 
of  your  school  is  so  out  of  touch  with  reality  that 
accuracy  in  the  relation  of  facts  has  become 
impossible.  When  you  gave  that  shock  to  your 
fellow-passenger  in  the  express  by  informing  him 
that  he  was  not  on  the  way  to  London,  and  then 
so  worked  upon  him  with  your  spiritual-railroad 
parable  that  he  could  only  hold  your  hand  at 
Euston,  you  laid  a  burden  upon  us  heavier  than 
we  could  bear.      I  was  not  there,  but  one  has 


THE  CLERICAL  LIFE  27 

some  slight  knowledge  of  human  nature,  and  if 
you  had  played  that  wrong-train  trick  on  any 
man  I  know,  when  the  train  was  going  eighty  (?) 
miles  an  hour,  he  had  only  stopped  short  of  an 
assault,  and  he  would  not  have  been  one  whit 
conciliated  by  your  intrusion  into  his  most  sacred 
affairs.  Besides,  are  you  certain  that  *  the  tears 
were  streaming  down  his  cheeks '  as  you  parted, 
and  does  every  person  say  *  Sir '  in  addressing 
you  upon  such  occasions  ?  Are  these  inevitable 
*  tears '  and  this  endless  refrain  of  '  Sir '  the  pheno- 
mena of  genuine  religion  ? 

*Sir*  came  in  some  eight  times  in  that  con- 
versation, always  to  you,  but  another  word  rose 
to  fourteen.  It  was  *  I,'  and  that  leads  me  to 
suggest  that  if  you  feel  obliged  to  illustrate  the 
Gospel  by  the  records  of  your  family  history, 
you  might  practise  devices.  Why  not  say  *  one  ' 
instead  of  *  1/  and  *a  mother  once  said  to  her 
son,'  instead  of  *  my  mother  was  a  plain  woman, 
and  I  'm  not  ashamed  of  it,  and  she  said  '  ?  Per- 
haps it  was  some  feeling  of  this  sort  made  you 
conduct  dialogues  with  yourself  as  'David  Dryvell,' 
but  this  stroke  was  less  than  felicitous.      It  is 


28  THE  CLERICAL  LIFE 

good  to  have  one's  message  soaked  in  life,  but 
humanity  is  wider  than  one's  relatives.  The  man 
who  has  seen  most  of  life  says  least  about  his 
family,  and  the  miscreant  who  will  utilise  his 
mother's  death-bed  in  a  sermon  ought  to  be 
deposed  from  the  Christian  ministry. 

You  did  not  commit  that  impiety ;  but  it 
remains  a  grave  question  whether  the  public  are 
specially  interested  in  a  preacher's  family  annals. 
If  your  father  had  been  a  marquis  you  would 
have  considered  it  bad  taste  to  introduce  him, 
and  it  is  not  any  better  because,  as  you  assured 
us,  he  belonged  to  the  proletariat.  What  gives, 
however,  your  father  some  claim  on  the  public  is 
his  amazing  versatility.  You  once  described  his 
eviction  from  a  little  farm  with  such  pathos  that 
it  was  mentioned  in  the  Daily  Scorpion.  At  the 
great  meeting  of  railway  servants  you  described 
his  dangers  as  the  brakesman  of  a  goods  train. 
When  there  was  trouble  among  the  dockers  we 
were  given  to  understand  he  had  shared  their 
hard  lot,  and  if  the  miners  go  out  on  strike  I  am 
morally  certain  that  your  father  will  have  been 
killed  in  an  explosion.     It  is  possible  that  he  was 


THE  CLERICAL  LIFE  29 

all  those  things  in  turn,  but  it  is  not  likely ;  and 
one  is  haunted  with  the  suspicion  that  he  was 
none  of  them,  but  that  least  picturesque  and  yet 
very  useful  member  of  the  community — the  bete 
noire  of  the  proletariat — a  small  tradesman. 

This  letter  is  written  with  much  frankness,  and 
may  not  be  agreeable,  but  I  wish  you  to  believe 
that  it  is  sincere  and  also  consistent  with  respect. 
Let  me  acknowledge  your  conspicuous  excellencies 
and  the  pledges  you  have  given  to  success.  You 
are  not  a  pedant  droning  out  college  essays,  nor 
a  superior  person  relying  on  the  approbation  of 
a  select  circle,  nor  a  cheap  iconoclast  attacking 
the  theology  you  do  not  understand,  nor  a  selfish 
professionalist  greedy  of  gain.  Your  sympathy 
with  humanity  is  genuine,  and  your  enthusiasm 
for  the  Kingdom  of  God  is  admirable.  Your 
virtues  are  your  own,  your  vices  are  those  of  your 
school.  One  would  like  to  see  your  sympathy 
banked  up  that  it  may  run  in  a  deeper  channel, 
and  your  enthusiasm  severely  pruned  that  it  may 
bear  richer  fruit. 

When  you  have  read  this  letter  you  will  be 
angry  with  me  and   count  me  a  scorner,  but  I 


30  THE  CLERICAL  LIFE 

shall  be  sustained  by  one  solid  satisfaction.  As 
you  are  under  thirty  years  of  age  and  are  not  yet 
intoxicated  with  spiritual  pride,  you  will  never 
again  fall  into  those  follies  I  have  tried  to 
describe.  Lambda. 


Ill 

To  a  Young  Minister  who  has  been  invited 
to  Preach  in  a  vacant  Church 


To  A  Young  Minister  who  has  been  invited 
TO  Preach  in  a  Vacant  Church 

My  dear  Sir, — You  have  been  three  years  in 
your  present  charge  in  the  Highlands  of  Scotland. 
During  that  time,  you  tell  me,  you  have  had  no 
great  trouble  or  failure,  and  no  marked  success. 
You  have  been  invited  to  preach  in  a  city  church, 
the  minister  of  which  died  lately,  and  you  ask  me 
whether  you  should  do  so. 

My  answer  is  meant  to  be  brief  and  practical, 
but  it  is  impossible  to  treat  anything  in  the  life  of 
a  true  minister  from  the  secular  point  of  view.  I 
cannot  but  sympathise  with  your  desire  to  be  in 
the  full  swing  of  an  active  career.  There  are 
hours  when  everything  around  you  seems  puny 
and  diminutive.  You  could  hardly  live  through 
them  if  it  were  not  for  the  hope  of  livelier  and 
more  golden  times.  It  is  part  of  the  loving  plan 
of  God  that  the   possibilities  in  life  are  all  but 

C 


34  THE  CLERICAL  LIFE 

unbounded,  that  there  may  be  at  any  time  a 
miraculous  turn  of  the  wheel.  A  margin  of  the 
indefinable  is  necessary  for  our  peace.  What 
you  do  not  know,  what  you  probably  will  not 
believe,  is  that  it  is  as  necessary  to  those  who 
have  attained  the  goal  you  aim  at  as  it  is  for  you. 
If  you  ask  the  men  in  the  ministry  who  have 
obtained  most  of  what  is  called  prominence  and 
success,  they  could  tell  you  that  they,  too,  have  a 
sense  of  something  unsatisfying,  something  un- 
attained  in  their  careers,  a  feeling  which  they  keep 
secret,  but  which  is  painful  enough  in  its  quiet 
way.  God  is  not  ashamed  to  be  called  their  God, 
seeing  He  has  prepared  for  them  a  city.  To  the 
last  they  have  their  hidden  dreams,  and  it  is  best 
that  we  should  go  on  dreaming  till  the  filmy 
curtains  are  parted,  and  we  reach  that  reality  in 
which  all  dreams  merge  and  end. 

Nor  is  there  anything  contemptible  in  the  desire 
to  win  acceptance  with  the  multitude.  *  He  was 
not  what  in  these  days  is  called  a  popular 
preacher,  let  us  thank  God  ! '  were  the  words  of 
Baldwin  Brown  when  one  of  his  friends  died. 
The^'e  is  a  popularity  to  be  loathed  and  feared — 


THE  CLERICAL  LIFE  35 

the  popularity  of  those  who  stand  by  the  solemn 
abyss  of  truth,  burning  blue  lights  over  it,  and 
throwing  yelping  crackers  into  it.  But  you  will 
never  aim  at  that,  and  you  will  never,  I  believe, 
deserve  such  verses  as  one  of  George  Macdonald's 
characters  composed  about  his  minister : 

*'Twas  a  sair,  sair  day,  'twas  my  hap  till 
Come  under  yer  soon  !  Mr.  Sclater  ; 
But  things  maun  be  putten  a  stap  till, 
An'  sae  maun  ye,  seener  or  later  I 

For  to  hear  ye  rowtin'  an'  scornin' 

Is  no'  to  hark  to  the  river  ; 
An'  to  sit  here  till  brak  trowth's  mornin' 

Wad  be  to  be  lost  for  ever.' 

But  the  power  of  using  the  gift  of  speech  for 
the  good  of  your  fellows  is  a  sacred  and  precious 
trust.  If  the  common  people  heard  Christ 
gladly,  popularity  need  be  no  reproach  to  any 
preacher. 

At  the  same  time  I  do  not  hesitate  in  advising 
you  to  decline  the  invitation.  For  one  thing,  you 
will  probably  not  succeed.  It  is  likely,  as  things 
are  managed  in  these  days,  that  the  congregation 
has  heard  other  preachers.     The  members,  or  a 


36  THE  CLERICAL  LIFE 

large  number  of  them,  may  be  satisfied  with  one 
who  has  already  appeared  in  their  pulpit.  In 
that  case  you  cannot  hope  to  change  their  minds. 
It  is  very  likely  that  you  will  not  do  yourself 
justice  unless  you  are  perfectly  convinced  that 
you  are  doing  what  is  right  and  honourable  and 
wise.  Some  disturbing  element  will  invade  your 
peace  and  destroy  your  self-command.  Other 
preachers  may  be  following  you,  and  any  impres- 
sion you  make  may  be  soon  effaced.  I  am 
discussing  the  matter  on  the  lowest  grounds, 
because  if  you  knew  that  you  would  not  be  called 
to  the  church,  you  would  not  have  had  the  slight- 
est occasion  to  write  me.  Well,  suppose  you  fail 
and  go  back  to  your  people,  it  is  possible  they 
may  not  discover  what  you  have  done,  although 
this  is  not  at  all  likely.  Even  if  they  do  not, 
there  is  a  secret  henceforth  between  them  and 
you,  a  little  rift  within  the  lute.  If  they  know, 
their  relation  towards  you  is  more  or  less  altered. 
What  romance  in  it  remained  has  practically 
disappeared.  You  will  also  be  unsettled  as  you 
wait  for  the  result  and  think  of  other  vacancies 
where  you  may  succeed  if  you  fail  in  this.     There 


THE  CLERICAL  LIFE  37 

is  nothing  which  more  surely  poisons  a  minister's 
heart  and  life  than  thought  and  speech  of  that 
kind.  It  is  a  poor  thing  to  say  that,  looking  at 
the  matter  from  the  commercial  point  of  view, 
you  have  cheapened  yourself,  but  it  is  true.  In 
ninety-nine  cases  out  of  a  hundred,  ministers  who 
preach  in  vacancies  live  to  regret  it  bitterly. 

If  you  had  been  many  years  in  your  parish,  if 
your  domestic  circumstances  were  different,  if 
you  felt  that  your  work  in  the  place  was  done, 
then  the  question  would  be  less  easy  to  answer. 
After  all,  we  must  take  things  as  we  find  them, 
and  as  such  matters  are  arranged  in  the  churches, 
there  may  be  but  one  way  of  securing  a  needed 
change.  In  that  case  it  would  be  best  to  speak 
frankly  to  the  leading  men  in  your  congregation. 
A  minister  who  has  done  good  work  for  a  term 
of  years  may,  as  a  rule,  depend  on  their  taking  a 
considerate  view  of  his  position.  I  own  that 
sometimes  that  may  be  impossible.  It  may  be 
for  a  man's  self-respect  and  peace  that  he  should 
resign,  even  though  by  resigning  he  may  make  it 
much  more  difficult  to  secure  another  pastorate. 
In  any  case  we  must  remember  that  no  minister 


38  THE  CLERICAL  LIFE 

can  lightly  fall  below  his  own  sense  of  what  is 
honourable,  decent,  upright,  self-respecting. 

How  happy  are  those  ministers  who  believe  in 
youth  what  most  of  us  have  to  be  taught  through 
innumerable  blunders  and  heart-breaking  humilia- 
tions, happy  if  even  so  we  come  to  know  it !  All 
our  thought  at  first  is  that  we  can  order  life,  that 
if  we  devise  and  plan  and  labour  we  will  in  due 
time  find  our  legitimate  place  and  true  sphere  of 
work.  We  find  it  hard  to  believe  that  God  does 
not  forget  His  faithful  servants  for  all  the  ups  and 
downs  of  the  hills.  At  last  we  discover  that  we 
cannot  order  life,  that  it  comes  flowing  on  us 
from  behind,  that  our  duty,  as  a  great  teacher  has 
said,  is  to  fall  in  with  the  forces  at  work,  to  do 
every  moment's  labour  aright,  and  then  let  come 
— not  what  will,  for  there  is  no  such  thing — but 
what  the  eternal  thought  meant  for  each  one  of 
us.  How  much  more  worthy,  serene,  wise  our 
days  would  have  been  if  from  their  fresh  morning 
they  had  been  filled  with  that  faith.  But  only  by 
slow  unveilings  did  the  truth  grow  clear,  and  so 
our  salvation  tarried. 

If  it  is  your  lot  to  end  your  days  where  you  are, 


THE  CLERICAL  LIFE  39 

do  not  fancy  that  you  are  without  the  means  of 
truest  happiness.  How  many  whose  lot  has  been 
cast  later  in  places  more  exacting  and  clamorous, 
look  back  with  yearning  affection  to  the  heather, 
the  hills,  and  the  burns.  Was  there  never  a  time 
when  the  poor  little  kirk — often  mist-soaked  or 
snow-locked — was  transfigured  to  you — '  never  an 
hour — say  of  moaning  midnight — when  the  kirk 
hung  spectral  in  the  sky,  and  Being  was,  as  it 
were,  swallowed  up  of  Darkness '  ?  But  your 
work  is  with  humanity — with  the  redemption  o 
humanity.  Consider  the  burdens  of  your  people, 
and  you  will  forget  your  own.  We  ask  too  much 
of  life  ;  are  importunate  in  craving  for  a  happiness 
denied  to  others,  and  to  which  we  have  no  right. 
Learn  to  sympathise  with  your  neighbours,  to 
penetrate  beneath  the  outward  mask  which  words 
throw  over  thought,  to  read  their  very  hearts. 
Remember  that  you  and  they  are  sharers  in  the 
life  of  the  wonderful  Church  of  Christ.  No  two 
maxims  should  be  more  with  the  minister  than 
these — Homo  sum  nihil huma?ii  a  me  alienuinputOy 
and  *  The  whole  creation  groaneth  and  travaileth 
in  pain  together  until  now.' — Yours  sincerely, 

Omega. 


IV  > 

To  a  Minister  whose  Sermons  last  an  Hour 


To  A  Minister  whose  Sermons 
LAST  AN  Hour 

Dear  Mr.  Longwynde, — When  you  surveyed 
our  church  from  the  platform  on  the  evening  of 
your  recognition  meeting,  you  whispered  in  my 
ear  that  you  wished  the  clock  could  be  removed. 
The  newest  and  handsomest  churches,  you  re- 
minded me,  have  no  clocks.  At  the  moment  I 
could  not  imagine  why  you  had  taken  a  dislike 
to  our  friendly  old  timepiece,  which  had  ticked 
on  peacefully  during  your  predecessor's  reign. 
Now,  alas!  many  members  of  the  congregation 
seem  to  wish  that  the  clock  would  serve  you  as 
the  bell  did  the  lazy  scholar  in  Goethe's  ballad 
— lay  violent  hands  upon  you  and  bring  your 
sermons  to  a  close.  I  myself  have  no  sympathy 
with  these  complaints.  I  like  long  sermons,  and 
if  all  your  hearers  had  my  patience,  you  would 
never  need  to  apologise  for  the  length  of  your 

43 


44  THE  CLERICAL  LIFE 

preaching.  Your  list  of  excuses  would  make  a 
sermon  in  itself.  There  is  first  the  importance 
of  the  subject,  next  the  copiousness  of  matter, 
thirdly  the  need  of  repetition  and  expansion  in 
dealing  with  a  London  congregation.  You  will 
forgive  me  if  I  repeat  quite  frankly  what  the 
grumblers  say  on  these  points. 

They  admit  the  importance  of  reverent  and  un- 
hurried public  worship,  but  they  complain  that  the 
early  parts  of  the  service  are  shortened  to  make 
room  for  the  sermon.  The  younger  people  are 
angry  because  they  are  seldom  allowed  to  sing 
more  than  three  verses  of  a  hymn.  '  Hymn  98, 
verses  first  and  last/  is,  they  say,  your  favourite 
formula.  This  request  for  more  singing  seems 
to  me  unreasonable,  partly,  perhaps,  because 
neither  I  nor  any  of  my  children  has  an  ear 
for  music.  The  reading  of  Scripture  occupies 
three  minutes,  and  the  prayers  five  minutes  each. 
On  the  other  hand,  there  is  never  any  hurry  over 
the  collection,  and  we  have  the  pleasure  each  Sun- 
day of  hearing  a  fresh  exhortation  to  liberality. 
Sometimes,  too,  you  give  us  most  interesting 
comments   on   the    Scripture    lesson.      When    I 


THE  CLERICAL  LIFE  45 

hear  that  *a  number  of  striking  and  profitable 
reflections'  have  occurred  to  you  on  the  Psalm 
just  read,  I  make  up  my  mind  with  satisfac- 
tion that  the  service  will  last  two  hours.  The 
grumblers  ask  why  your  watch  lies  on  the  desk 
before  you  during  the  first  twenty  minutes,  and 
reposes  in  your  pocket  during  the  sermon? 

As  for  the  second  point,  no  one  ventures  to 
dispute  your  gifts  of  eloquence,  or  the  riches  and 
variety  of  your  mental  equipment.  What  you 
lack,  it  is  said,  is  the  power  of  selection.  The 
subjects  you  prefer  are  those  which  range  over  a 
wide  area  of  the  Bible.  *  The  History  of  Balaam,' 
*The  Disobedience  and  Punishment  of  Jonah,' 
furnished  you  with  instructive  morning  sermons. 
To  my  mind,  these  discourses  were  full  of  subtle 
analysis  and  of  marvellous  description.  I  shall 
never  forget  the  word-picture  you  drew  of  Balaam 
looking  down  from  the  mountains  upon  the  tents 
of  Israel.  Other  members  say,  however,  that 
your  sermons  on  Scripture  characters  are  little 
more  than  a  running  commentary.  The  truth 
is,  they  do  not  like  the  trouble  of  using  their 
Bibles  in  church.     You  are  rightly  severe  on  the 


46  THE  CLERICAL  LIFE 

modern  practice  of  coming  to  church  provided 
simply  with  a  hymn-book.  Few  things  add 
more  to  the  attraction  of  your  preaching  than 
your  custom  of  tracking  names  and  places  from 
one  end  of  the  Bible  to  the  other,  *  It  will  be 
a  profitable  exercise,  brethren/  you  said  last 
Sunday,  *to  see  what  is  told  us  about  Esau  in 
the  New  Testament.  Turn  with  me,  first  of  all, 
to  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews.'  I  had  been 
getting  a  little  drowsy,  as  one  does  after  a  hard 
week  in  the  City,  but  by  the  time  I  had  found 
the  verse  in  my  own  Bible  and  in  those  of  my 
four  children,  I  felt  thoroughly  revived.  I  like 
your  practice  of  taking  a  single  verse,  and  show- 
ing how  the  whole  of  Scripture  can  be  made  to 
bear  upon  it.  Some  weeks  ago  you  preached  from 
the  words,  *  Then  shall  every  man  have  praise  of 
God.'  Beginning  with  Abel,  and  gradually  work- 
ing through  Old  Testament  history,  you  drew  up 
a  list  of  praiseworthy  actions.  Next  you  reviewed 
the  heroic  deeds  recorded  in  the  New  Testament, 
and  as  people  were  beginning  by  that  time  to 
slip  out  by  the  door  farthest  away  from  the  pulpit, 
you  announced  that  a  fuller  exegesis  of  the  pass- 


THE  CLERICAL  LIFE  47 

age  would  be  reserved  for  the  evening.  I  returned 
in  the  evening  full  of  interest  and  expectancy,  and 
was  astonished  to  find  so  small  a  congregation. 

Among  the  charms  of  your  sermons  is  their 
wealth  of  quotation  and  anecdote.  My  wife 
believes  that  you  have  learned  by  heart  nearly 
the  whole  of  English  poetry.  My  eldest  son 
points  out  that  your  extracts  are  invariably 
taken  from  the  '  Thousand  and  One  Gems/  but, 
even  if  he  is  right,  immense  labour  would  be 
required  to  commit  them  to  memory.  Long- 
fellow, who  appears  to  be  your  favourite  poet, 
is  mine  and  my  wife's  as  well,  and  we  never 
hear  a  verse  from  '  The  Psalm  of  Life '  without 
a  thrill  of  satisfaction.  We  like  your  habit  of 
repeating  the  same  anecdote  in  different  sermons. 
This  helps  to  stamp  the  lesson  on  the  memory, 
and  it  must  be  a  poor  tale  that  will  not  bear 
retelling.  Yet  people  complain  of  your  extracts 
and  your  stories.  Only  last  Wednesday  one  of 
the  deacons  said  we  might  suppose,  from  your 
anecdotes  about  the  Royal  Family,  that  the 
Queen  is  constantly  engaged  in  presenting  Bibles 
to  savage  chieftains. 


48  THE  CLERICAL  LIFE 

It  is  a  singular  proof  of  the  bad  taste  of  our 
part  of  London,  that  objection  should  be  taken  to 
the  personal  references  in  your  sermons.  *  I  hope 
no  one  will  think  me  egotistical/  you  remarked 
on  a  recent  occasion.  *  No  man  is  more  free 
from  self-love,  or  the  desire  for  self-glorification. 
The  truth  is,  we  all  know  much  about  ourselves, 
and  next  to  nothing  about  other  people;  there- 
fore personal  experiences  are  the  only  experi- 
ences worth  telling.'  Many  complained  because, 
on  Harvest  Sunday,  when  the  text  was,  'Seed- 
time and  harvest  shall  not  cease,'  the  greater  part 
of  the  sermon  was  taken  up  with  an  account  of 
your  holiday  at  Eastbourne.  My  wife  and  I  were 
prevented  from  leaving  London  last  summer,  and 
we  enjoyed  hearing  about  your  walks  on  Beachy 
Head.  It  is  the  personal  element  in  your  preach- 
ing which  draws  crowds  to  the  church. 

You  are  quite  right  in  thinking  that  repetition 
is  necessary  in  sermons  meant  for  London  con- 
gregations. There  is,  unfortunately,  a  growing 
tendency  to  drowsiness  among  our  members.  I 
cannot  conceive  what  the  cause  of  this  may  be, 
although    I   frankly  admit    I    drop  off  to   sleep 


THE  CLERICAL  LIFE  49 

much  oftener  than  in  the  time  of  our  former 
minister.  Advancing  years  may  be  a  sufficient 
explanation  in  my  case,  and  it  is  pleasant  to 
know,  if  I  should  chance  for  a  few  moments  to 
be  overcome  with  heaviness,  that  when  I  wake 
you  will  be  presenting  the  same  truth  under  a 
slightly  varied  aspect.  I  sometimes  think  our 
church  is  overheated,  for  even  the  younger  hearers 
show  a  marked  inclination  to  somnolence.  We 
are  fortunate  in  having  a  pastor  who  will  bear 
with  our  infirmities,  reiterating  his  arguments  until 
even  the  dullest  brain  can  grasp  his  meaning. 

It  is  a  singular  circumstance  that  so  many  of 
the  pewholders  are  moving  away  from  the  seats 
around  the  pulpit,  and  are  taking  sittings  near 
the  door.  One  explanation  may  be  that  they 
kindly  wish  to  leave  the  best  places  for  strangers. 
I  have  heard  it  whispered  that  many  prefer  pews 
from  which  they  can  retire  unnoticed  if  the  ser- 
mon exceeds  the  usual  length.  For  my  own  part, 
I  like  to  sit  with  my  family  well  in  view  of  the 
pulpit,  and  to  set  an  example  of  regular  and 
punctual  attendance. 

Nothing  proves  more  strikingly  your  great  skill 
D 


50  THE  CLERICAL  LIFE 

as  a  preacher  than  the  apologies  you  have  ready 
as  the  sermon  proceeds.  As  there  are  no  divi- 
sions, we  are  carried  smoothly  and  pleasantly  on, 
without  any  severe  tax  on  the  memory.  When 
the  subject  is  fairly  opened  up,  and  a  few  of  the 
younger  and  more  impatient  hearers  are  begin- 
ning to  fidget  with  their  hymn-books,  you  cleverly 
introduce  some  phrase  which  proves  that  the  end 
is  in  sight.  *  Now,  brethren,  the  remaining  points 
may  be  very  briefly  considered  ' ;  '  Not  to  fatigue 
the  attention  of  the  congregation,  let  me  pass  on 
at  once  to  the  closing  scenes  of  Balaam's  history'; 
'Time  would  fail  to  exhaust  the  wealth  of  this 
passage,  so  let  me  in  closing  throw  out  a  few 
practical  lessons  from  the  subject.'  These  'few 
practical  lessons'  make  a  sermon  in  themselves. 
They  have  a  '  First  of  all,'  a  '  further,  brethren,' 
a  '  finally,'  an  '  in  conclusion,'  and  a  '  last  of  all.' 
I  am  never  weary  of  admiring  the  versatility  of 
intellect  which  enables  you  to  see  so  many  lessons 
in  a  single  text. 

People  complain  that  your  preaching  is  not 
memorable,  but  that  is  because  they  will  not  take 
notes.     I  filled  six  large  note-books  during  last 


THE  CLERICAL  LIFE  51 

winter,  and  if  you  should  wish  to  publish  a  volume, 
you  will  find  the  substance  of  your  discourses  in 
my  possession.  It  is  odd  that  publishers  do  not 
recognise  their  saleable  qualities.  When  I  leave 
my  note-book  at  home  I  remember  little,  but  this 
is  not  surprising  in  a  man  who  has  passed  his 
fiftieth  birthday.  My  elder  children  repeat  your 
most  interesting  anecdotes  at  the  tea-table.  My 
younger  children  are  not  now  allowed  to  come  to 
church,  although  under  our  late  minister  they 
came  every  morning.  My  wife's  invalid  sister 
has  also  given  up  church-going,  because  she  finds 
the  long  sermons  so  exhausting.  She  is  teasing 
me  at  present  to  take  the  back  pew  in  the 
gallery. 

Your  severest  critics  must  confess  that  you 
never  preach  old  sermons.  In  this  you  present 
an  admirable  contrast  to  many  ministers  whose 
reputation  stands  high.  Professor  Woodcroft,  for 
instance,  is  a  great  man,  but  I  hear  he  has  only 
six  sermons,  each  of  which  he  has  delivered  at 
least  fifty  times.  Depend  upon  it  that,  when  your 
brother  ministers  complain  of  your  verbosity,  they 
are  meanly  envious  of  your  genius. 


52  THE  CLERICAL  LIFE 

An  attempt  is  to  be  made,  I  hear,  to  induce 
you  to  shorten  your  sermons,  but  you  may  be 
trusted  to  resist  such  tyranny.  I  warned  the 
deacons,  at  their  last  meeting,  that  you  were  not 
a  man  to  be  driven.  I  had  also  the  pleasure  of 
telling  them  that,  whoever  might  grumble,  you 
had  the  grateful  appreciation  and  sympathy  of 
one  at  least  of  your  members,  X. 


To  a  Minister  who  has  no  Theology  in  his 
Sermons 


To  A  Minister  who  has  no  Theology 
IN  his  Sermons 

My  dear  C, — I  know  you  have  strong  con- 
victions, or  at  least  that  you  use  strong  language, 
about  what  you  call  theological  preaching,  but  I 
have  heard  you  once  or  twice  lately,  and  venture 
to  brave  your  indignation  for  what  I  will  call 
your  good.  If  you  were  a  careless  fellow,  who 
preached  without  preparation  and  without  soul, 
I  should  not  think  of  writing  you  in  this  strain ; 
and  it  is  only  because  I  seem  to  see  plainly  how 
you  could  make  your  work  much  more  effective 
that  I  presume  to  act  the  critic. 

You  frankly  avow  your  dislike  of  the  theo- 
logical sermon.  I  have  heard  you  rail  many  a 
time  at  the  formalism,  the  pedantry,  the  lifeless- 
ness  of  definitions,  and  expatiate  on  the  interest 
and  attractiveness  ot  life.  You  accept  without 
any    drawback    the    contrast    of  literature    and 

55 


56  THE  CLERICAL  LIFE 

dogma,  and  you  are  even  more  dogmatic  than 
Matthew  Arnold,  in  the  assurance  with  which 
you  put  the  Old  and  New  Testaments  under 
your  favourite  heading,  and  exclude  them  from  the 
other.  You  scorn  the  proof-text  theory  of  Scrip- 
ture, which  makes  it  a  quarry  for  the  dogmatist  to 
slave  in,  instead  of  a  park  where  any  gentleman 
may  walk  abroad.  You  dread  giving  your  young 
people  a  distaste  for  the  truth  of  God  by  doing  it 
up  into  any  kind  of  pemmican,  however  pure  and 
nutritious  it  may  be.  You  prefer  to  show  them 
the  range  of  the  pasture,  to  pluck  flowers  for 
them  here  and  there,  to  make  what  is  human  and 
incidental  in  it  vivid,  to  be  ethical,  imaginative, 
practical— anything  but  theological.  The  living 
interests  of  living  souls  are  to  be  cared  for;  no 
reverence  is  due  in  the  pulpit  to  the  dreary  com- 
binations of  abstractions  known  as  theology. 
They  are  dead  past  resurrection,  and  should  be 
allowed  to  rest  in  their  graves.  Most  of  the 
problems  raised  by  theologians  are  unreal,  and 
only  need  to  be  courageously  neglected  to  be 
quite  forgotten.  You  relegate  some  to  the  book 
of  riddles,  as  Jowett  said  of  problems  in  meta- 


THE  CLERICAL  LIFE  57 

physics,  and  some  to  the  sphere  of  the  mysterious, 
and  go  your  way  rejoicing. 

Seriously,  I  think  your  joy  is  not  so  well 
grounded  as  I  should  like  my  friend's  joy  to  be. 
Does  it  not  occur  to  you  that  among  all  the 
needs  which  God  has  planted  in  us  the  most 
irrepressible  and  invincible  is  the  need  to  think  ? 
Does  it  not  make  you  yourself  uneasy  to  have  no 
conception  of  that  truth  as  a  whole  which  you 
minister  to  your  people  part  by  part  ?  I  should 
have  a  lower  opinion  of  your  intelligence  than  I 
have  if  I  did  not  think  so,  and  you  may  depend 
upon  it  that  what  you  feel  those  who  listen  to 
you  feel  quite  as  much.  No  sane  mind  can  be 
satisfied  with  aperqus.  We  like  to  catch  a  fresh 
glimpse  of  the  truth  here  and  there,  to  see  it  lit 
up  with  a  ray  from  an  unexpected  quarter  of  the 
sky ;  but  better  than  everything,  because  more 
satisfying  to  the  deep  sensitive  mind  of  man,  is 
it  to  feel  that  we  see  each  several  part  as  a  part 
of  the  great  whole  of  truth.  An  audience  of 
ordinary  people  is  far  more  keen  in  this  respect 
than  most  speakers  imagine.  The  common  in- 
telligence has  a  sense  of  unity,  and  misses  it,  and 


58  THE  CLERICAL  LIFE 

resents  its  absence,  when  it  is  not  there.  No 
partial  truth  tells  as  it  ought  to  tell  unless  the 
hearer  feels,  as  even  a  dull  hearer  can,  that 
the  pressure  of  the  whole  truth  is  behind  it.  You 
must  not  think  to  get  out  of  this  by  saying  that 
systematic  construction  of  the  whole  truth  is 
impossible  to  human  intelligence.  Very  likely  it 
is,  but  though  you  cannot  be  omniscient,  one  may 
surely  plead  that  you  should  be  coherent.  And 
it  is  just  the  impression  of  incoherence,  not  so 
much  in  a  single  sermon  as  in  your  preaching  as 
a  whole,  which  is  produced  by  your  disregard  of 
theology. 

You  have  often  said  to  me,  and  repeated  it  in 
preaching,  that  a  dead  dogmatic  orthodoxy  was 
responsible  for  much  of  current  scepticism.  Men 
brought  up  in  an  impossible  theology  cast  off 
their  theology  and  their  Christianity  together. 
That  has  its  truths,  but  do  you  think,  quite 
seriously,  that  a  dead  dogmatic  orthodoxy  will  be 
so  productive  of  sceptics  as  a  type  of  Christianity 
which  does  not  consider  itself  worth  thinking 
about?  Will  earnest-minded,  men — and  there 
are   such   in    all    our    churches — take   this   new 


THE  CLERICAL  LII«E  59 

Christianity  to  live  and  die  by?  If  you  think  so, 
I  do  not.  Now  theology  is  the  serious  inter- 
pretation and  construction  in  intellectual  forms  of 
all  we  know  about  God  and  man.  We  all  need, 
crave  for,  and  hail  with  gratitude,  whatever  helps 
us  in  this  direction,  and  if  you  made  the  ex- 
periment of  thinking  your  clearest,  strongest,  best 
and  fullest,  on  any  of  the  great  '  dogmas '  as  you 
call  them,  *  truths '  as  I  should  call  them,  of  the 
Christian  revelation,  I  undertake  to  say  you 
will  find  interest  in  quarters  where  you  have 
failed  to  find  it,  and  interest  of  a  kind  well  worth 
attaching  to  the  gospel.  Our  faith  implies  the 
grandest  of  all  philosophies,  and  though  one  does 
not  use  philosophy  to  evangelise  with,  we  ought 
to  speak  wisdom  among  the  perfect,  and  help  the 
minds  of  our  people  to  feel  at  home  in  the  great 
world  of  divine  truth.  There  are,  of  course,  in- 
coherent mortals,  eclectics,  and  others,  who  '  wear 
motley  in  their  brains,'  and  who  can  only  be 
caught  with  changing  kaleidoscopic  glimpses  of 
truth,  but  luckily  the  mass  of  men  are  saner,  and 
like  their  intellectual  vesture  not  of  patchwork, 
however  gay,  but  woven  of  one  piece  from  the 


6o  THE  CLERICAL  LIFE 

top  throughout.  It  is  worth  any  pains  so  to 
master  your  own  mind  and  experience  so  as  to 
give  the  impression  of  such  a  unity  and  con- 
sistency in  your  preaching. 

If  you  turn  your  mind  to  theology,  too,  it  will 
vastly  increase  your  interest  in  the  Scriptures. 
You  know  very  well,  so  well  that  you  never 
conceal  it,  that  you  are  not  much  at  home  in  the 
epistles.  You  do  get  texts  out  of  them  occasion- 
ally, you  condescend  to  select  readings  from  them 
but  you  stumble  at  a  great  deal  they  contain. 
To  speak  frankly,  that  is  because  you  only  take 
texts  from  them.  If  the  apostles  were  anything 
at  all,  they  were  theologians.  They  thought  with 
an  intensity  which  staggers  us  when  we  feel  it,  of 
what  God  had  given  them  in  Christ  and  in  the 
Spirit,  and  of  how  this  supreme  gift  stood  related 
to  the  providential  guidance  of  the  world.  Their 
mind  can  only  be  understood,  can  only  be 
accepted  or  rejected,  as  a  whole ;  and  I  for  one 
am  convinced  that  the  chances  of  its  acceptance 
rise  immeasurably  as  we  see  how  magnificent, 
how  consistent,  how  profound  and  sublime  a 
whole  it  is.     Religion  is  a  great  thing,  and  even 


THE  CLERICAL  LIFE  6i 

the  plain  man  feels  that  the  true  preaching  and 
interpretation  of  it  must  reflect  its  greatness. 
He  has  a  sense  for  scale  in  ideas,  and  he  misses 
in  your  non-theological  preaching  the  grandeur 
of  New  Testament  thought.  In  the  effort  to  be 
interesting  you  too  easily  succeed  in  not  being  im- 
pressive. Novaaliqiia  sedmagna^  the  younger  Pliny 
begged  his  friend  to  write  to  him  in  his  hour  of 
sorrow  ;  and  the  human  soul  everywhere  goes  out 
to  that  sed  magna.  Your  practical,  ethical,  literary 
sermon,  fresh  as  it  may  be,  always  leaves  some- 
thing— the  essential  something,  the  magni  aliquid 
— to  be  desired ;  and  I  don't  think  you  will  be 
able  to  supply  the  want  till  you  take  the  apostolic 
theology  seriously,  and  find  out  the  way  to  bring 
its  greatness  into  your  preaching.  You  are  too 
sensible  a  man  to  be  taken  in  by  the  nonsense 
that  is  talked  about  the  independence  of  religion 
and  theology ;  the  Christian  type  of  life  and  the 
Christian  type  of  doctrine,  at  least  in  rational 
creatures,  have  some  necessary  relation  to  each 
other.  The  faith  of  the  Christian,  and  his  new 
life  in  faith,  are  far  from  perfection  if  they  do 
not  assert  themselves  in  intelligence  as  well  as  in 


62  THE  CLERICAL  LIFE 

temper  and  conduct,  and  impel  him  to  construct 
a  Christian  conception  of  God  and  man  and  the 
world  in  which  his  soul  may  find  its  rest.  One 
may  betray  presumption  in  his  procedure  in  this 
direction,  no  doubt ;  but  to  refuse  to  think  con- 
secutively, strenuously,  and  consistently,  about 
what  God  has  revealed  to  us  in  His  Son  and  by 
His  Spirit,  is  presumptuous  in  another  way  ;  the 
slothful  man  who  declines  the  labour  of  thinking 
treats  God  as  insolently  as  the  man  who  thinks 
he  has  found  Him  out  to  perfection. 

If  you  are  not  too  angry,  I  will  add  one  thing 
more.  As  a  Christian  minister  it  is  your  business 
to  preach  God  to  men.  I  have  noticed  in  you 
and  in  other  men  who  share  your  sympathies  a 
certain  want  in  this  respect.  You  rather  pride 
yourself  on  your  knowledge  of  human  nature,  on 
your  skill,  won  largely  from  the  study  of  literature 
(and  not  to  be  won  at  all,  as  you  tell  me,  from 
the  study  of  catechisms),  to  read  the  heart  and 
hold  the  mirror  up  to  it :  this  is  one  of  your 
great  powers  as  a  preacher.  I  grant  it,  but  I 
should  rather  call  it  by  another  name.  When 
you  call  it  a  great  power,  you  mistake  diagnosis 


THE  CLERICAL  LIFE  63 

— not  always  of  the  deepest — for  therapeutics. 
What  a  preacher  needs,  more  even  than  the 
knowledge  of  man,  is  the  knowledge  of  God. 
Without  this,  his  ability  to  read  the  heart  is  the 
gift  of  the  dramatist  or  novel-writer,  not  of  the 
evangelist.  Jesus  knew  what  was  in  man,  but 
that  was  not  His  gospel.  He  knew  the  Father. 
It  is  a  serious  thing  to  say,  and  I  would  not  say 
it  without  feeling  my  responsibility,  that  your 
preaching  has  more  of  man  than  of  God  in  it, 
and  that  it  is  evangelically  ineffective  for  that 
reason.  Think  about  God,  what  He  is,  what  He 
has  done,  what  He  has  promised  to  man  ;  think 
out  what  is  involved  in  the  Incarnation,  in  the 
Atonement,  in  Christ's  return  as  Judge  ;  think  of 
it  all  as  a  revelation  of  God,  not  merely  as  a 
ministry  to  man,  and  say,  We  praise  Thee,  O 
Lord,  propter  magnam  tuam  gloriam.  These 
ancient  words  remind  one  of  another  thing  also 
which  you  interesting  non-theological  preachers 
are  apt  to  overlook  to  your  own  and  the  common 
loss ;  viz.,  that  the  Christian  Church  has  a  mind, 
a  language  and  a  style  of  its  own,  our  part  in 
which  is  lost  unless  we  know  theology  to  some 


64  THE  CLERICAL  LIFE 

extent  both  as  a  history  and  a  science.  Dr. 
Arnold  of  Rugby  had  a  notion  that  a  minister 
need  no  professional  education  ;  his  vocation  was 
simply  that  of  a  Christian  gentleman  whom  the 
ordinary  curriculum  of  the  university  fitted  for 
his  duties.  It  is  not  really  so.  The  vocation  is 
a  unique  one,  and  the  intelligent  fulfilment  of  it 
requires  the  minister  to  be  a  specialist  in  some- 
thing. In  what.?  In  the  knowledge  of  God,  I 
should  say;  and  that,  in  the  mind,  is  theology. 
If  it  is  in  the  mind,  too,  it  will  tell  in  the 
sermons ;  and  I  do  not  ask  that  it  should  do 
more. — Believe  me,  yours  ever, 

Nu. 


VI 


To  a  Minister  whose  Preaching  is  a  Failure 


To  A  Minister  whose  Preaching 
IS  A  Failure 

My  dear  Friend, — You  complain  with  some 
bitterness  that  you  are  conscious  of  being  a 
failure  in  the  pulpit.  I  am  not  in  the  least 
surprised.  To  confess  the  truth  to  you,  it  would 
grieve  or  disgust  me  to  be  told  the  contrary.  It 
would  grieve  me,  if  you  are  not  grieved ;  it 
would  disgust  me,  if  you  regarded  your  want 
of  success  with  self-satisfaction.  I  readily  and 
eagerly  admit  your  failure  may  not  be  your  fault. 
However  much  we  may  bewail  it,  it  cannot  be 
denied  that  this  age  is  not  favourable  to  the 
making  of  great  preachers.  It  produces  critics ; 
and  criticism,  honest  though  it  may  be,  means 
doubt.  But  preaching  implies  faith.  The  great 
critic  is  seldom,  if  ever,  a  great  preacher ;  at  least, 
not  before  he  wins  his  way  into  the  light.  Then, 
indeed,   he   may   be    a    greater  believer   and   a 

07 


6S  THE  CLERICAL  LIFE 

greater  preacher  because  of  his  doubt  And  I 
am  sanguine  that  the  most  powerful  and  brilliant 
period  of  the  pulpit  is  before  us.  However  that 
may  be,  the  Church  is  now  doing  the  pioneering 
work  of  the  critics,  and  it  must  have  the  faith  of 
patient  waiting.  Many  a  preacher,  who  is  not  an 
enemy  of  the  higher  criticism,  finds  its  influence 
to  be  enervating.  He  feels,  for  instance,  how 
hard  it  is  to  preach  from  the  first  chapters  of 
Genesis.  Were  it  not  that  we  have  the  deep 
well  of  spiritual  experience  in  the  Psalms,  it 
would  often  be  too  difficult  a  task  to  preach  from 
the  Old  Testament.  As  to  the  New  Testament, 
I  believe  the  remark  of  a  recent  writer  in  T^ 
British  Weekly  is  true,  that  we  are  turning  the 
corner  and  entering  on  a  time  of  greater  certainty, 
stronger  faith  in  dogmatic  Christianity,  and  there- 
fore more  pulpit  power. 

It  is  true  that  you  might  avoid  the  necessity 
of  passing  through  the  present  period  of  criticism, 
by  the  very  ancient  and  very  modern  fashion  of 
allegorical  preaching.  Allegory  really  is  the 
prerogative  of  faith.  When  faith  employs  this 
method  of  teaching,  it  does  so  because  it  is  sure 


THE  CLERICAL  LIFE  69 

of  its  steps.  Bunyan  allegorised  in  the  exuber- 
ance of  his  faith.  And  Plato,  I  need  not  remind 
you,  is  never  more  ethically  profound  and  spiritual 
than  in  his  occasional  myths.  But  the  opposite 
is  also  true,  that  allegory  is  the  refuge  of  the 
doubter.  Some  may  think  that  the  story  of  Er 
the  son  of  Armenius,  at  the  close  of  the  Repubh'c, 
is  only  a  cloak  over  Plato's  scepticism.  That  is 
not  my  opinion.  Still,  when  a  preacher  turns  the 
cities  of  the  Plain,  for  example,  or  the  journey  of 
the  Israelites  through  the  wilderness,  into  a  text 
for  edifying  lessons,  he  may  do  it  for  a  very 
different  reason  from  Bunyan.  He  may  be 
hiding  from  the  congregation,  and,  perhaps,  from 
himself,  his  real  unbelief,  with  words  that  have 
been  the  vehicle  of  faith.  He  preaches  allego- 
rically  because  he  does  not  believe  the  actual 
history.  What  he  does  because  of  his  own  un- 
belief, our  Lord  did,  when  He  spoke  in  parables, 
because  of  His  hearers'  unbelief,  to  whom  it  was 
not  given  to  know  the  mysteries  of  the  kingdom 
of  heaven.  But  to  you,  as  to  the  disciples,  these 
mysteries  are  supposed  to  be  in  some  measure 
revealed.     If  they  are  made  known  to  you,  speak 


70  THE  CLERICAL  LIFE 

them  out  *  plainly,'  as  what  has  been  revealed 
unto  you  concerning  the  Father.  Use  parables 
with  great  caution.  It  is  safer  not  to  preach  in 
allegory  at  all,  unless,  indeed,  you  are  quite  sure 
that  you  have  a  strong  imagination  and  a  strong 
faith.  For  it  is  certain  you  are  not  called  to 
chastise  your  people's  want  of  faith.  Allegorical 
preaching  is  not  for  the  use  of  the  ordinary  run 
of  preachers,  though  they  are  the  persons  who 
find  it  the  easiest,  because  the  most  idle,  of  all 
methods. 

But,  you  say,  I  must  not  preach  my  doubts. 
No,  but  doubts  hover  midway  between  denial 
and  belief.  Some  doubts  end  in  denial.  Others, 
however,  have  a  face  that  is  turned  towards 
knowledge.  The  believing  doubter — if  I  may  be 
allowed  the  seeming  paradox — is  yearning  for  a 
truth  which  he  has  not  found.  When  that  is  so, 
there  is  an  evident  progress  from  doubt  to  faith ; 
and,  when  such  a  man  preaches,  there  is  a  con- 
viction within  him  and  within  the  hearts  of  his 
hearers  that  helps  him  and  them  to  strive  towards 
the  better  and  nobler  life.  Though  he  may  not 
believe    many    doctrines,   those   which    he    does 


THE  CLERICAL  LIFE  71 

believe  he  lays  hold  of  with  a  firmer  grasp.  Do 
you  not  think  that  his  will  be  powerful  preaching? 
What  I  mean  is  that  there  is  a  reality  underlying 
some  doubting  souls,  while  the  doubts  of  another 
man  are  only  the  depth  of  a  morass.  Mr.  Lewis 
Morris  has  said  that  Socrates  'doubted  doubt 
away.' 

Your  failure,  again,  may  lie  at  the  door  of 
your  hearers.  You  are  comparatively  young, 
and  have  not  been  long  in  the  ministry.  It  may 
be  that  you  have  not  had  time  to  educate  your 
people  to  understand  your  teaching  or  to  awake 
in  them  a  consciousness  of  spiritual  wants,  which 
your  teaching  is  calculated  to  satisfy.  If  that  is 
the  case,  I  pray  you  to  remain  strictly  faithful 
to  your  present  method  of  preaching.  You  are 
unpopular  because  of  your  hearers'  false  expecta- 
tions. Wait.  Have  the  courage  to  be  a  failure. 
Abate  not  one  jot  of  what  you  demand  from 
your  hearers.  Do  not  sacrifice  the  future  to  the 
present.  You  have  to  *  make '  your  people  as 
well  as  your  theology,  but  your  theology  first, 
and  afterwards  your  people.  And  your  people 
through  your  theology.    The  fatal  mistake,  which 


72  THE  CLERICAL  LIFE 

some  have  had  to  rue,  is  that  they  run  before 
they  have  had  a  message,  or  when  their  message 
is  insufficient  or  insufficiently  understood  by 
themselves.  You  were  discreet  enough  to  re- 
fuse a  call  from  a  church  until  your  college 
course  came  to  its  natural  termination,  and  have 
avoided  the  one-sidedness  of  others  who  are  *  like 
a  cake  unturned.'  You  have  a  complete  theology, 
whatever  else  you  have  not.  You  can  look  round 
an  idea,  and  estimate  its  relation  to  other  ideas. 
Now  this,  I  take  it,  is  of  great  importance  for  a 
preacher.  It  helps  him  with  various  kinds  of 
hearers,  at  different  stages  of  spiritual  experience, 
or  at  no  stage  at  all.  It  secures  his  own  progress, 
without  which  he  will  be  for  a  long  time  groping 
in  the  dark,  like  a  belated  traveller  that  has 
lost  his  way  and  cannot  make  out  his  bearings. 
Young  preachers  often  fence  with  imaginary 
enemies.  They  are  half-conscious  that  they 
are  imaginary ;  else  they  would  engage  in  a 
hand-to-hand  conflict.  They  have  no  sense  of 
proportion,  no  clear  view  of  the  end  and  aim  of 
all  their  efforts.  They  are  not  'synoptical,'  as 
the  old  thinker  has  it.     But  you  are  in  no  danger 


THE  CLERICAL  LIFE  73 

of  missing  your  mark.  You  will  bring  your 
people  gradually  to  appreciate  and  adopt  your 
own  point  of  view  ;  and,  when  you  have  con- 
quered this  initial  difficulty,  the  rest  will  depend 
on  yourself  One  Sunday  you  will  discover,  to 
your  own  surprise  and  joy,  that  you  and  they 
understand  one  another.  Then  comes  your 
opportunity. 

But,  whether  the  failure  of  which  you  complain 
is  your  own  fault  or  your  hearers',  you  know  now 
why  I  am  rather  pleased  than  otherwise.  A 
preacher  that  is  satisfied  with  himself  does  not 
understand — to  put  it  mildly — the  work  which 
he  has  to  do.  An  advocate  who  has  won  his 
case,  or  a  mathematician  who  has  solved  a 
problem,  or  an  organiser  who  has  bent  the  wills 
of  other  men  to  his  own,  may  be  naturally  self- 
satisfied.  But  preaching  belongs  to  another 
sphere.  It  is  a  fine  art,  as  much  as  painting 
is,  as  distinguished  from  the  mechanical  arts, 
which  become  easier  every  day  in  the  execution. 
You  remember  the  remark  of  a  certain  painter, 
that  he  must  have  passed  the  zenith  of  his  power, 
because  he  was  now  satisfied  with  his  picture. 


74  THE  CLERICAL  LIFE 

The  observation  of  the  author  who  complained 
that  he  had  lost  the  genius  that  he  had  when  he 
wrote  one  of  his  books  is  not  so  convincing  to 
my  mind.  It  may  be  that  his  consciousness  of 
weakness  arose  from  increased  power.  So  the 
preacher  is  on  the  downward  slope  as  soon  as  he 
is  content  with  what  he  has  achieved.  In  this 
respect  preaching  is  like  goodness.  The  greatest 
saints  think  that  they  are  the  greatest  sinners, 
and  the  most  effective  preachers  consider  them- 
selves the  most  conspicuous  failures.  Self- 
conscious  satisfaction  is  never  the  mark  of  a 
great  preacher.  It  would  seem  as  if  the  act  of 
self-contemplation  were  itself  always  and  every- 
where fatal  to  the  consummate  artist. 

If  this  is  true  of  preaching  regarded  as  an  art, 
how  much  truer  must  it  be  when  we  remember 
the  nature  of  the  particular  work  in  which  the 
preacher  is  engaged.  His  special  business  is  to 
divest  himself  and  his  hearers  of  self,  and  fill 
himself  and  them  with  another  Person's  inspira- 
tion. As  a  mere  orator,  he  draws  inspiration 
from  ideas.  But  preaching  has  a  deeper  source 
than  even  truths.      It  is  part  of  the  man's  own 


THE  CLERICAL  LIFE  75 

godliness,  and,  like  every  other  side  of  a  pious 
character,  must  grow,  yea,  consciously  fashion 
itself,  after  the  pattern  of  the  Incarnation  itself. 
I  was  tempted  to  draw  my  pen  through  the 
words, '  consciously  fashion  itself  I  till  I  remembered 
the  phrase  used  by  the  Apostle  in  the  great 
passage  that  describes  our  blessed  Lord's  Incar- 
nation. He  does  not  hesitate  to  speak  of  Christ 
Jesus  as  *  emptying  Himself  of  the  form  of  God 
that  He  might  be  able  to  take  upon  Himself  the 
form  of  a  servant.  I  do  not  here  go  into  the 
reasons  which  satisfy  my  mind  that  the  Apostle 
does  not  intend  to  say  that  Christ  added  the  form 
of  a  servant  to  the  form  of  God,  as  Lightfoot 
explains  it,  but  means  that  He  took  the  form  of 
a  servant  instead  of  the  form  of  God,  as  Meyer 
understands  the  words.  Now,  if  our  Lord 
emptied  Himself  voluntarily,  deliberately,  of  His 
own  accord,  that  He  might  begin  a  gradual 
process  of  growth,  power,  and  glory,  which  would 
otherwise  be  absolutely  closed  against  Him ;  if 
by  omnipotence  He  cannot  take  man's  intellect 
and  heart  by  storm,  but  can  and  does  by  the 
self-emptying   which   is   effected  through  Incar- 


76  THE  CLERICAL  LIFE 

nation,  shall  we  not  say  that  the  preacher 
achieves  his  highest  triumph  in  the  same  way? 
Can  we  conceive  a  self-satisfied  preacher  of  the 
emptiness  of  God  other  than  a  failure?  How 
can  he  set  forth  the  power  of  Christ's  Incarnation? 
A  preacher  who  has  not  the  Incarnation  for  the 
staple  of  his  sermons,  whether  he  is  conscious  of 
it  as  a  doctrine  or  simply  knows  its  influence  in 
moulding  his  own  character,  lacks  the  essential 
of  powerful  preaching  ;  and  the  preacher  who  has 
it  as  a  doctrine,  but  does  not  present  the  type  of 
character  which  it  ought  to  produce,  is  feeble 
and  contemptible  in  the  eyes  of  others,  when 
he  might  and  ought  to  be  strong  and  glorious. 
Therefore  take  the  comfort  which  your  failure 
suggests. — Yours  very  faithfully, 

Epsilon. 


VII 

To  a  Minister  who  is  unsuccessful  with 

Children 


To  A  Minister  who  is  unsuccessful 
WITH  Children 

Dear  Mr.  Meaningwell,— I  have  hesitated  for 
some  weeks  before  replying  to  the  letter  in  which 
you  kindly  invite  my  opinion  on  your  Sunday 
afternoon  addresses  to  the  children,  and  ask  me 
for  suggestions  from  my  own  experience  as  to  the 
best  means  of  interesting  the  young.  My  hesita- 
tion was  chiefly  due  to  the  feeling  that  a  retired 
minister  like  myself,  who  has  settled  as  an 
ordinary  member  of  a  congregation,  should  keep 
himself  rather  scrupulously  in  the  background, 
and  should  not  in  the  slightest  degree  interfere 
with  the  pastor  in  his  work.  Since  you  wrote 
me  I  have  visited  a  number  of  churches  in  the 
town,  in  order  to  see  how  the  children's  services 
are  conducted,  and  though  I  frankly  admit  that 
your  own  methods  do  not  altogether  commend 

79 


8o  THE  CLERICAL  LIFE 

themselves  to  me,  I  fear  there  is  very  little  you 
can  learn  from  your  neighbours. 

At  the  parish  church  on  Sunday  afternoon  I 
found  an  immense  congregation  of  children  assem- 
bled under  the  guidance  of  a  young  Irish  curate. 
In  each  pew  there  were  six  or  seven  little  boys 
or  girls,  with  a  teacher  at  the  end  or  in  the  middle. 
Even  so  it  was  necessary  for  two  men  to  walk  up 
and  down  the  aisles  during  the  sermon,  nudging 
one  child,  poking  another,  and  frowning  savagely 
at  all.  I  watched  carefully  to  see  if  a  single  boy 
or  girl  was  taking  any  interest  in  the  service,  but, 
except  in  the  front  rows,  not  one  was  even  pre- 
tending to  listen.  The  little  heads  moved  restlessly 
about ;  the  hum  of  whispering  grew  louder  at  the 
dullest  passages,  until  the  curate  came  to  a  full 
stop  and  sharply  called  the  congregation  to  order. 
The  cause  of  his  failure  was  not  far  to  seek.  He 
believes  that  the  only  method  of  interesting 
children  is  to  adopt  a  style  of  extreme  familiarity. 
His  address  was  a  kind  of  nursery  talk,  unattached 
to  any  definite  subject,  and  interrupted  by  a  num- 
ber of  foolish  questions.  The  phrase,  *  Now, 
children,  listen  to  me,'  must  have  recurred  not  less 


THE  CLERICAL  LIFE  8i 

than  fifty  times.  *  You  have  often  seen  a  horse 
prick  up  its  ears  at  a  noise !  cannot  you  try  to  do 
the  same  ? '  *  The  children  on  the  left  are  not 
answering  my  questions.  Wake  up,  children,  and 
hear  what  I  am  going  to  tell  you  about  the 
Thames  at  Richmond.  Has  mother  ever  taken 
you  to  see  the  Thames  ?  Yes,  I  am  sure  she  has. 
Well,  you  saw  the  big  river  flowing  along,  but  I 
wonder  if  you  ever  thought  that  it  is  not  the  same 
river  which  flowed  along  last  year  or  last  week  in 
the  same  place.  It  is  just  like  that  with  you,  dear 
children.  The  hand  which  you,  little  Willy,  held 
out  to  the  master  to  be  caned  last  week  is  not  the 
same  hand  that  you  held  out  five  years  ago.'  This 
is  a  fair  specimen  of  the  whole  sermon.  It  meant 
nothing  and  led  nowhere ;  the  only  lesson  which 
resulted  at  the  end  was  that  children  should  cry  as 
seldom  as  possible.  *  What  would  you  say  about  a 
little  boy  who  cried  for  nothing  ?  Would  you  not 
say  that  he  was  very  silly  ?  What  would  you  say, 
children  ? '  Faint  murmurs  from  the  front  rows  of 
*  Very  silly.'  *  Oh,  but  I  want  to  hear  all  of  you. 
Speak  out,  please,  little  girls  on  the  left'  Every 
child  in  the  church  then  shouted  'Very  silly '  at  the 

F 


82  THE  CLERICAL  LIFE 

top  of  its  voice,  and  the  curate  proceeded  to  enforce 
the  great  lesson  of  the  afternoon — '  You  should 
laugh  when  you  ought  to  laugh,  and  cry  when  you 
ought  to  cry.'     This  he  made  the  children  repeat 
after  him  several  times,  and  when  the  noise  was  at 
the  loudest  I  slipped  out  of  my  pew.     There  was 
still  time  to  visit  Holy  Trinity  in  the  next  street, 
where  the  Low  Church  rector  shares  your  opinion 
that  children  should  not  be  left  to  Sunday-school 
teachers   or   superintendents,  however   able,   but 
should  be  gathered  into  the  church  every  Sunday 
afternoon,  and  instructed  by  the  clergyman  him- 
self.     The  rector  of  Trinity,  Dr.  Ponderby,  kept 
better  order  than  the  Irish  curate,  but  he  also  was 
assisted  by  several  stern  men  who  patrolled  the 
aisles.     He  preached  a  formal  sermon  from  the 
pulpit,  his  subject  being,  'Scenes  from  the  Life  of 
Elijah.'    Each  paragraph  was  introduced  with  the 
words, '  My  youthful  hearers.'     One  could  not  but 
feel  that  after  such  a  sermon  the  children  would 
never  turn  again  with  any  interest  to  the  life  of 
the  prophet.     Dr.  Ponderby  cast  the  shadow  of 
his  own  dulness  over  the   Scripture   page.     He 
asked  no  questions,  never  called  his  audience  to 


THE  CLERICAL  LIFE  83 

attention,  never  lifted  his  head  from  his  sermon- 
case,  and,  except  for  his  unvarying  formula  of 
address,  seemed  totally  unconscious  of  any  differ- 
ence in  age  between  himself  and  his  audience.  I 
have  heard  that  Dr.  Ponderby's  grandfather,  who 
was  a  chaplain  to  William  IV.,  was  famous  for 
his  sermons  to  the  young.  They  were  delivered 
twice  a  year,  and  attended  by  half  of  fashionable 
London.  His  form  of  address  was,  '  My  young 
brethren.'  It  is  said  that  Dr.  Ponderby  models  his 
own  discourses  on  his  grandfather's.  '  The  all- 
important  principle,'  he  has  been  heard  to  remark, 
*  is  that  the  children  of  the  poor  should  grow  up 
to  reverence  the  clergy.' 

Mr.  Selburne,  of  the  Baptist  Church,  is  rightly 
believed  to  have  done  more  than  any  other 
man  towards  giving  the  children  of  our  town  a 
thorough  knowledge  of  the  Bible.  His  Schools 
have  taken  prize  after  prize  in  Scripture  examina- 
tions. He  tells  me  that  his  plan  is  to  pack  his 
children's  sermons  full  of  information,  so  that  if 
the  hearers  miss  the  spiritual  lessons,  they  shall  at 
any  rate  carry  something  away.  At  my  request 
he  allowed  me  to  look  over  one  of  his  addresses. 


84  THE  CLERICAL  LIFE 

The  text  was,  *  I  will  lift  up  mine  eyes  unto  the 
hills/  This  served  to  introduce  a  description  of 
the  mountains  of  the  Bible  with  approximate 
heights.  The  children  were  invited  to  find  out 
and  send  to  him  in  writing  a  list  of  events  which 
are  recorded  to  have  happened  on  mountains. 

*We  have  done  the  rivers  and  lakes  of  the 
Bible,  the  chief  towns  of  Palestine,  the  scenery, 
and  characteristics  of  Egypt,  and  the  travels  of 
the  Apostles,  during  this  winter,'  said  Mr. 
Selburne,  with  pardonable  pride.  '  Unfortunately 
our  schools  are  somewhat  falling  off  in  numbers, 
possibly  because  we  give  so  many  home-lessons 
for  preparation,  but  more  probably  because  Mr. 
Andrews,  of  the  Wesleyan  Chapel,  offers  so  many 
attractions  in  the  way  of  treats.' 

One  afternoon  I  attended  Mr.  Selburne's  class- 
room and  examined  the  scholars,  but  although 
teachers  and  pupils  seemed  unusually  earnest,  in- 
telligent, and  well-informed,  it  was  disappointing 
to  find  so  many  vacant  seats.  From  my  observa- 
tions there,  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  a  pastor's 
relations  to  his  young  people  should  not  be  too 
severely  intellectual. 


THE  CLERICAL  LIFE  85 

Mr.  Andrews,  the  Wesleyan  minister,  is  for- 
tunate in  having  many  rich  and  generous  members. 
In  summer  and  winter  alike,  constant  amusements 
are  provided  for  the  children  who  attend  his 
schools.  A  fortnight  ago  I  looked  in  and  heard 
the  announcements  at  the  close  of  the  lessons.  Mr. 
Andrews  himself  was  present,  and  he  stepped  on 
to  the  platform  with  a  friendly  smile,  which  was 
answered  by  eagerly  expectant  looks  from  the 
children. 

*  I  have  a  very  pleasant  announcement  to  make 
this  afternoon,  my  dear  young  friends.  Mr. 
Wontner,  who  has  so  often  shown  himself  a  kind 
friend  to  the  school,  wishes  you  all  to  have  a 
happy  day  in  the  country.  He  has  therefore  in- 
vited the  children  with  their  teachers  to  tea  in  his 
beautiful  park.  We  shall  meet  here  at  ten  o'clock, 
and  drive  off  in  brakes  which  Mr.  Wontner  has 
kindly  provided.  Tell  your  fathers  and  mothers 
that  Mr.  Wontner  would  gladly  have  invited 
them  to  join  you,  but  he  fears  there  will  not  be 
room.  Next  year  he  hopes  to  organise  a  picnic 
for  the  parents.  I  trust  you  will  all  be  punctual 
and  regular  in  your  attendance,  so  as  to  show  that 


86  THE  CLERICAL  LIFE 

you  appreciate  the  efforts  of  those  who  are  trying 
to  promote  your  health  and  pleasure,  as  well  as 
your  spiritual  profit.' 

Coming  now  to  our  own  Church,  I  venture  to 
think  that  you  make  the  same  mistake  as  Mr. 
Andrews,  although  in  a  different  way.  We  are 
not  a  rich  congregation,  and  we  do  not  rely  on 
frequent  entertainments  for  filling  our  class-rooms. 
You  appear  to  think,  however,  that  the  only 
method  of  attracting  children  is  to  give  them 
amusing  sermons,  full  of  racy  *  personal  experi- 
ences.' You  have  an  endless  succession  of 
anecdotes,  most  of  which  are  taken  from  your 
own  boyhood.  '  Mother,'  said  a  little  girl  of  my 
acquaintance  the  other  day,  'do  you  not  think 
the  minister  must  have  been  a  very  naughty  boy?* 
We  have  heard  how  you  robbed  an  orchard,  how 
you  ran  away  to  sea,  and  how  you  played  truant 
several  times  a  week.  *  As  a  boy,  children,  I  was 
very  fond  of  birds'-nesting,  and  I  will  describe  to 
you  a  terrible  adventure  I  once  had  in  pursuit 
of  this  wicked  amusement — an  adventure  which 
nearly  cost  me  my  life.'  On  my  first  Sunday  in 
your  church,  I  listened  with  breathless  interest  to 


THE  CLERICAL  LIFE  87 

your  account  of  this  'adventure/  and  I  noticed 
that  my  grandchildren,  who  had  never  heard  you 
before,  were  also  much  excited.  They  discussed 
the  story  at  tea-time,  and  my  youngest  grandson 
declared,  much  to  the  astonishment  of  his  nurse, 
that  he  meant  to  go  to  church  twice  every 
Sunday,  'to  hear  about  the  birds'  eggs/  Next 
time  you  addressed  the  children  you  told  how,  as 
a  boy,  you  longed  to  be  an  Indian.  *  I  am  afraid, 
dear  boys  and  girls,  I  was  a  wild  and  disobedient 
lad,  and  caused  sad  trouble  to  my  poor  father  and 
mother.'  We  learned  how,  at  the  age  of  nine,  you 
resolved  to  live  in  a  wigwam,  let  your  hair  grow 
long  and  lanky,  and  steal  out  at  night  with  a 
tomahawk  to  kill  white  strangers  who  had  robbed 
the  Indians  of  their  land.  My  grandchildren  were 
again  deeply  impressed.  '  I  think  our  minister 's  a 
splendid  man,'  said  one  of  them  that  evening. 
But  I  noticed  that  the  children  who  had  been 
longer  in  the  church  were  not  particularly  attentive. 
They  had  heard  of  too  many  adventures.  Far  be 
it  from  me  to  cast  doubt  on  your  veracity,  but  there 
is  a  strong  suspicion  that  you  did  not  really  go 
through  quite  all  these  perils.     When  you  stand  in 


88  THE  CLERICAL  LIFE 

the  pulpit  and  cheerfully  announce,  *  I  well  remem- 
ber, children,  how  it  was  once  the  dearest  wish  of  my 
heart  to  be  a  pirate  and  scour  the  seas  under  the 
black  flag,'  the  children  are  conscious  of  a  certain 
feeling  of  contempt.  Your  early  life,  if  we  may 
judge  from  your  preaching,  would  furnish  matter 
for  a  dozen  penny  dreadfuls. 

A  minister  who  desires  the  respect  of  children 
must  show  that  he  respects  them.  If  there  is 
Hstlessness  and  inattention  in  our  church,  it  is 
because  they  have  begun  to  doubt  you.  They 
regard  you  as  a  romancer,  an  Arabian  Nights  en- 
tertainer, the  caliph  of  a  hundred  tales.  Hardly  a 
child  believes  seriously  that  at  the  age  of  fourteen 
you  left  home  to  enlist  as  a  soldier,  and  that  you 
met  a  good  old  man  on  the  way,  who  persuaded 
you  to  abandon  your  purpose.  That  tale,  if  it  stood 
alone,  would  have  interested  every  one,  but  as  you 
also  left  home  at  different  times  to  be  a  sailor, 
a  miner,  and  an  engine-driver,  its  authority  is  not 
a  little  discounted.  Personal  experiences  are 
excellent,  but  a  man  may  have  too  many  experi- 
ences. You  will  pardon  me,  I  trust,  for  suggesting 
that  we  have  heard  different  and  contradictory 


THE  CLERICAL  LIFE  89 

accounts  of  the  way  in  which  you  were  first 
influenced  for  good.  The  old  man  on  the  Ports- 
mouth road,  who  persuaded  you  not  to  join  the 
army,  was  only  one  of  many  similar  benefac- 
tors, who  started  up  unexpectedly  and  in  the  nick 
of  time.  There  was  the  old  lady  at  a  cottage 
window,  with  her  Bible  lying  open  before  her, 
who  called  you  back  from  a  career  of  crime,  and 
the  preacher  in  the  wayside  chapel,  who  startled 
you  with  the  words,  'What  doest  thou  here, 
Elijah.?'  and  the  singer  in  the  London  streets, 
whose  sweet  voice  melted  your  heart.  Which  of 
all  these  can  we  rely  on  ?  If  you  wish  to  recover 
your  influence  with  the  children,  I  should  advise 
you  to  drop  personal  narrative.  It  may  be  true, 
as  you  say,  that  a  preacher  wins  the  heart  of  the 
young  by  himself  living  over  again  his  youthful 
experiences.  But  in  your  case  this  principle  has 
been  carried  too  far.  After  you  had  harrowed 
our  feelings  with  accounts  of  how  you  grieved 
and  almost  broke  the  hearts  of  your  parents,  we 
were  not  a  little  amazed  by  the  very  different 
accounts  given  by  your  father  and  mother  when 
they    visited    the    church    last    autumn.      Your 


90  THE  CLERICAL  LIFE 

mother  told  every  one  that  you  had  been  a  model 
son.  Your  father,  addressing  the  Sunday-school, 
said  it  was  always  your  dearest  wish  to  be  a 
minister.  He  remembered  the  book  you  loved 
best  as  a  boy;  it  was  the  Pilgrim's  Progress, 
which  at  eight  you  had  learnt  almost  by  heart. 
You  were  the  best  boy  at  day-school  and  Sunday- 
school,  the  pride  of  your  teachers  and  an  example 
to  your  class-mates.  He  might  truthfully  say  that 
you  had  never  cost  your  parents  an  hour's  anxiety. 
The  facts,  I  suspect,  lie  somewhere  between 
your  father's  description  and  your  own.  But 
these  early  reminiscences  have  served  their  pur- 
pose, and  should  now  be  thrown  aside.  The  mere 
teller  of  stories  is  not  the  true  preacher  to  children. 
Some  fruits  of  the  labour  which  you  expend  so 
freely  for  the  benefit  of  the  older  people  would  be 
welcomed  by  your  younger  hearers.  You  are  in 
no  danger  of  becoming  merely  silly,  like  the  Irish 
curate,  or  dull,  like  Dr.  Ponderby,  or  cut  and 
dried,  like  Mr.  Selburne,  or  a  caterer  of  meats  and 
drinks,  like  Mr.  Andrews.  Give  the  children  the 
best  fruits  of  your  mind  and  heart,  and  the  results 
will  repay  you  a  thousandfold. — Yours,  X. 


? 


VIII 
To  a  Ministerial  Sir  Willoughby  Patterne 


To  A  Ministerial  Sir  Willoughby  ^ 
Patterns 

My  dear  p., — You  had  a  cold  last  Thursday, 
and  when  you  called  at  our  house  before  the 
prayer-meeting,  you  remarked  on  the  brevity  of 
the  most  promising  careers.  *I  often  picture  to 
myself,'  you  said,  *  my  congregation  as  it  would 
be  on  the  Sunday  after  my  removal.  I  seem  to 
see  the  people  all  in  mourning,  the  stranger  in 
the  pulpit,  wearing  my  gown  and  handling  my 
hymn-book  and  Bible.  Not  that  I  feel  very  ill, 
you  added,  *  but  it  is  as  well  these  things  should 
be  faced.  There  are  few  more  terrible  trials 
than  the  severance  between  a  minister  and  an 
attached  congregation.' 

*  Fortunately  there  is  no  question  of  that,'  I 
murmured,  for  I  knew  of  old  your  fondness  for 
watching  your  own  funeral. 

'I  think  there  ought  to  be  a  long  interregnum 

93 


94  THE  CLERICAL  LIFE 

between  two  ministries/ you  went  on.  *It  often 
amazes  me  to  see  how  in  three  months  a  con- 
gregation can  console  itself.  A  church  ought  to 
pass  through  a  lengthened  widowhood.  Nowa- 
days the  weeds  are  cast  off  before  the  grass  is 
green  on  the  pastor's  grave.' 

At  the  prayer  -  meeting  we  heard  about 
McCheyne  and  Henry  Martyn,  and  other 
eminent  ministers  who  had  been  cut  off  in  the 
flower  of  their  days.  Towards  the  end  you  asked, 
as  you  often  do  on  such  occasions,  for  leave  to 
make  a  personal  explanation.  *  Owing  to  a 
severe  cold  which  I  caught  in  the  rain  last  week 
I  fear  it  will  be  impossible  for  me  to  preach  on 
Sunday.  The  cold  shows  signs  of  settling  on 
the  chest,  and  my  doctor  advises  me  to  take  a 
few  days'  rest.  I  have  therefore  arranged  that 
Mr.  Lawson,  of  Earless,  shall  act  as  my  substitute. 
It  will,  I  know,  be  a  severe  trial  to  many  of  you 
to  be  deprived  of  my  own  ministrations,  and  I 
assure  you  that  only  grave  physical  causes  would 
have  led  me  away  at  such  a  time.' 

Most  congregations  would  have  taken  fright 
at  your  reference  to  *  grave  physical  causes,'  but 


THE  CLERICAL  LIFE  95 

we  have  heard  this  *  Wolf,  wolf  too  often.  Some 
months  ago  I,  as  your  senior  deacon,  took  alarm 
at  your  frequent  references  to  some  mysterious 
malady  which  might  ere  long  leave  us  without  a 
shepherd.  I  consulted  your  doctor,  and  to  my 
unbounded  satisfaction,  learned  from  him  that 
you  have  a  thoroughly  sound  constitution,  and 
are  only  inclined  to  be  nervous.  I  wish,  however, 
that  you  would  not  worry  your  wife  with  these 
imaginary  ailments.  The  other  day,  I  am  told, 
you  were  heard  saying  that  you  would  trust  her  to 
carry  on  your  work  among  the  people,  and  to  see 
that  your  memory  never  faded  from  their  hearts. 

You  have  been  our  pastor  nearly  ten  years, 
and  you  may  rightly  claim  that  under  your 
ministry — '  this  ministry '  is  your  favourite  phrase 
— the  church  has  prospered.  The  deacons  have, 
however,  an  uncomfortable  consciousness  that 
you  think  them  wanting  in  gratitude.  Why  need 
you  tell  us  so  often  that  the  people  of  Ipswich,  or 
Poole,  or  Warwick  are  envying  our  good  fortune? 
Our  late  pastor  did  his  duty  in  a  quiet,  steady 
way,  letting  us  see  that  the  advantages  of  our 
connection  were  mutual.     You  are  always  hinting 


96  THE  CLERICAL  LIFE 

that  if  in  any  particular  matter  you  do  not  get 
your  own  way,  *  other  churches '  will  gladly  offer 
you  a  more  congenial  sphere. 

So  far  as  I  know,  you  have  only  had  one  call 
since  you  settled  here  in  1887.  None  of  us  could 
be  ignorant  on  the  subject,  for  the  newspaper  para- 
graph was  posted  by  yourself  to  all  the  members. 
Shall  I  ever  forget  the  church  meeting  which  was 
called  to  deliberate  on  the  matter  ?  How  you  rang 
the  changes  on  your  sensitive  nature,  your  need  of 
sympathy,  your  feeling  that  many  of  us  had  not 
appreciated  you.  *  It  would  break  my  heart  to 
leave,*  you  told  us  with  plaintive  emphasis.  *  I 
am  engaged  in  the  training  of  many  dear  young 
people,  who  have  learned  to  look  up  to  me  as 
their  model.  What  would  become  of  them  if 
they  were  suddenly  deprived  of  their  counsellor 
and  friend?  Perhaps — I  have  been  told  so  by 
not  a  few  of  the  most  cultured  and  intellectual 
among  you — my  preaching  has  a  freshness  not 
altogether  common  in  these  days  of  plagiarism 
and  shallowness.  Such  powers  as  I  possess  are 
at  your  service  ;  my  only  complaint  is  of  your 
stony  and  indifferent  silence.     If  my  preaching 


THE  CLERICAL  LIFE  97 

profits  you,  write  frankly  and  tell  me  so.  I  need 
encouragement  more  than  most  men.  Mine  is  a 
self-distrustful,  self-suspicious,  self-condemning 
nature.  If  you  wish  to  keep  me  among  you,  dear 
friends,  do  not  leave  me  without  the  expression 
of  your  confidence.  I  make  no  claim  to  per- 
fection, but  while  my  poor  gifts  are  spared  me 
I  shall  gladly  spend  and  be  spent  for  your  sakes.* 

I  think  that  speech  first  gave  us  a  glimpse  into 
the  depths  of  your  egoism.  It  is  written  of  the 
immortal  Sir  Willoughby  that  his  generosity 
roared  of  /  louder  than  the  rest,  and  such  has 
been  our  experience.  Have  you  ever  attended  a 
deacons'  meeting  without  referring  to  the  sacrifice 
you  made  in  refusing  an  increase  of  stipend  and 
the  advantages  of  a  larger  town  ?  The  stipend 
exceeded  ours  by  fifty  pounds ;  the  town  has 
twenty  thousand  inhabitants  for  our  ten.  Surely, 
if  we  searched  the  history  of  Nonconformist 
pastorates,  we  might  find  a  generosity  even  fit 
to  match  with  yours. 

You  will  not  take  it  amiss,  I  trust,  if  I  suggest 
that  we  have  now  heard  enough  about  the  books 
and  the  men  that  have  influenced  you.     It  was 

G 


98  THE  CLERICAL  LIFE 

interesting  at  first  to  know  that  you  traced  the 
vigour  of  your  prose  style  to  a  careful  study  of 
Carlyle's  French  Revolution^  that  your  peculiar 
aptitude  for  dividing  texts  had  been  acquired 
from  Dr.  Maclaren,  and  that  as  a  boy  you  had 
learned  by  heart  two  books  of  Paradise  Lost. 
But  your  habit  of  giving  obituary  notices  of 
great  men  in  your  Sunday  evening  sermons, 
with  particular  reference  to  the  influence  they 
exerted  on  your  own  development,  has  now  be- 
come wearisome.  When  Mr.  Spurgeon  died, 
your  only  allusion  was  a  reminiscence  of  how  he 
had  once  (by  accident,  I  suppose)  heard  you  ad- 
dress a  meeting,  and  had  said  afterwards,  '  That 
young  man  has  the  making  of  a  preacher.'  We 
have  heard  that  tale  at  least  two  hundred  times. 

Do  you  remember  your  excitement  when  a 
newspaper  offered  to  interview  you?  Before 
that  time  you  had  spoken  of  interviewing  and 
of  journalism  in  general  with  profound  contempt. 
'Mark  my  words,'  you  said  one  evening,  *if 
ever  the  papers  propose  to  interview  me,  I  shall 
absolutely  decline.  Could  anything  be  more 
undignified  than  for  the  leaders  of  denominations 


THE  CLERICAL  LIFE  99 

to  give  themselves  away  in  such  a  fashion  ? 
When  my  opinions  are  presented  to  the  world, 
it  shall  be  through  the  medium  of  some  eminent 
publishing  house.' 

Time  passed  on,  and  last  winter  you  organised 
a  very  useful  soup-kitchen.  It  was  a  new  de- 
parture in  our  county,  and  the  Daily  Mirror 
wrote  asking  leave  to  interview  you  on  the 
subject.  At  ten  o'clock  I  met  you  on  your  way 
to  the  post-office. 

*  The  Daily  Mirror  requests  an  interview,'  was 
your  breathless  greeting. 

*  Indeed  !  but  of  course  you  will  refuse? ' 
*Not   at   all.      I    dislike   interviewing    in    the 

abstract,  but  in  this  case  the  circumstances  are 
peculiar.  The  congregation  has  a  right  to  expect 
that  its  work  shall  be  made  known.' 

Before  the  day  closed,  every  member  knew 
that  you  had  called  at  the  office  and  answered 
the  questions  of  the  interviewer.  With  burning 
eagerness  we  looked  out  next  day  for  the  article. 
To  our  amazement  there  were  only  three  sentences 
about  the  soup-kitchen  ;  the  rest  was  your  own 
personal   and   family  history.      Facts  which  we 


loo  THE  CLERICAL  LIFE 

knew  were  there — the  story  about  Mr.  Spurgeon, 
the  study  of  Carlyle,  the  learning  of  Paradise 
Lost.  But  we  were  not  aware  that  your  father — 
who  kept  a  small  shop  at  West  Wilmington — 
was  a  man  of  marvellously  retentive  memory  and 
of  exquisite  literary  taste,  and  that  you  inherit 
your  pulpit  gifts  from  him.  Neither  had  we 
noticed  that  our  chapel  is  so  crowded  on  Sunday 
evenings  that  the  doorkeeper  has  often  to  turn 
hundreds  away.  To  the  best  of  my  knowledge 
this  has  happened  only  once  in  the  history  of 
the  church — on  the  night  when  Dr.  V intro- 
duced you.  You  edified  your  interviewer,  if  I 
remember  rightly,  with  the  remark  that  all  really 
great  sermons  are  founded  on  personal  experi- 
ences. '  No  study  of  Biblical  characters  delights 
my  people  so  much  as  the  simple  records  of  my 
own  private  history.'  Like  Sir  Willoughby,  you 
might  have  added,  *  Our  nature  is  mysterious,  and 
mine  as  much  as  any.' 

May  I  venture,  with  great  deference,  to  sug- 
gest that  your  '  personal  experiences '  have  been 
surprisingly  numerous.  You  are  now  thirty-eight ; 
you  came  to  us  in  1887 ;  yet  if  ever  there  was  a 


THE  CLERICAL  LIFE  loi 

man  with  a  past,  you  are  he.  Did  you  really 
takp  that  journey  in  Northern  Russia  and 
Spitzbergen  in  the  depth  of  an  Arctic  winter? 
Is  it  possible  that  at  the  age  of  eighteen  you 
addressed  a  vast  audience  in  one  of  the  largest 
chapels  in  the  Midlands?  Did  you  actually, 
when  your  income  was  only  £jo,  spend  two- 
thirds  of  it  on  books  and  magazines?  A  kind  of 
legendary  glow  has  gathered  round  your  earlier 
years  ;  but  when  you  spoke  last  Sunday  morning 
of  dining  twelve  years  ago  at  the  table  of  your 

friend  Baron in  Norway,  your  natural  acute- 

ness  must  have  detected  the  look  of  doubt  on  our 
faces.  Some  day,  if  time  is  granted,  we  expect 
to  hear  of  your  journeyings  in  Mexico,  South 
Africa,  and  Spain. 

Our  older  members  are  becoming  alarmed  by 
your  vague  references  to  the  Higher  Criticism : 
*On  the  whole,  I  am  disposed  to  agree  with 
Wel'hausen';  *  My  judgment  is  at  one  with 
Canon  Cheyne's  as  to  the  date  of  the  Psalter.' 
As  you  never  tell  us  what  the  conclusions  of 
these  eminent  scholars  are,  our  minds  are  left  in 
a  state  of  blank  bewilderment 


102  THE  CLERICAL  LIFE 

Before  closing,  I  may  mention  one  other  point. 
You  asked  me  to  read  at  the  Literary  Society 
to-morrow  the  paper  you  had  promised  to 
deliver,  entitled  *A  Post-card  from  Mr.  Gladstone.' 
On  examining  the  paper,  I  think  it  might  be  best 
to  make  the  excuse  of  your  cold,  and  allow  the 
young  men  for  once  to  get  up  an  impromptu 
discussion.  The  Society  does  not  care  to  know 
the  whole  history  of  your  mental  education  on 
the  Home  Rule  question.  If  you  considered  it 
worth  while  to  write  and  ask  Mr.  Gladstone 
whether  he  believed  the  Act  of  Union  was  passed 
by  corrupt  methods,  you  need  not,  I  think,  have 
made  the  fact  of  his  replying  '  Yes '  on  a  post- 
card an  excuse  for  wasting  two  hours  of  the 
Society's  time.  Neither  will  the  circumstance 
that  you  were  a  Home  Ruler  before  Mr.  Glad- 
stone be  of  much  practical  service  to  the  Irish 
cause. 

We  appreciate  your  excellent  qualities ;  we 
wish  to  retain  you  as  our  pastor  for  many  years. 
But — you  will  pardon  an  old  man  for  saying  so — 
an  Egoist  wears  out  the  patience  of  his  truest 
friends. — Yours,  etc.,  X. 


IX 


To  a  Minister  who  regards  himself  as  a 
Prophet  of  Criticism 


To  A  Minister  who  regards  himself  as 
A  Prophet  of  Criticism 

Dear  Newlyte, — It  was  very  friendly  to  take 
me  into  your  confidence  to-day,  and  I  gave  my 
mind  to  the  situation  last  night  when  the  traffic 
had  ceased  on  the  street  and  the  firelight  was 
weaving  mystical  patterns  on  the  floor.  One  is 
wiser  then  than  at  any  other  hour,  because  one 
is  quieter  and  can  hear  the  Inner  Voice. 

Accept,  first  of  all,  the  assurance  of  my  un- 
affected sympathy  in  this  cross  providence  that 
has  befallen  you.  It  was  a  brave  idea  to  share 
with  your  people  unto  the  uttermost  the  fruits 
of  your  critical  study;  it  must  have  been  a 
bitter  disappointment  to  find  that  they  repaid 
you  with  distrust  and  suspicion.  Your  bookcase 
ledges  and  three  tables  hardly  able  to  sustain  the 
open  volumes  of  criticism— Wellhausen  looking 
very  stodgy  —  and   your   anxious  figure  flitting 

106 


io6  THE  CLERICAL  LIFE 

from  book  to  book,  trying  to  reconcile  blazing 
contradictions,  make  an  interior  that  has  as  yet 
escaped  art,  but  will  some  day  afford  a  com- 
panion picture  to  the  Alchemist.  The  scene 
came  up  vividly  before  my  eyes,  and  affected 
me  by  its  irony  of  circumstances.  Your  neigh- 
bour Foodie,  who  believes  that  Solomon  jotted 
down  Proverbs  as  a  kind  of  private  diary  in  the 
intervals  of  pleasure,  and  who  recently  explained 
to  a  deeply  impressed  conference  that  after 
Isaiah's  lips  were  burned  away  the  Lord  spoke 
through  him  as  if  he  were  a  funnel,  preached  last 
Sunday  on  the  Atonement  from  the  text  of  the 
*  badgers'  skins/  and  has  been  going  from  house 
to  house  for  a  week  sipping  honey,  while  you 
wandered  for  four  days  and  part  of  two  nights 
through  a  sandy  desert  of  documents  in  order 
to  prove  that  Moses  could  not  have  written 
Deuteronomy,  and  have  received  on  an  average 
six  letters  a  day  ever  since  from  aggrieved 
members  of  your  congregation,  lamenting  your 
fall,  besides  one  from  *A  Well-wisher,' pointing 
out  kindly  but  firmly  that  an  avowed  atheist  is 
hardly   a   fit   person    to   be    the    minister   of   a 


THE  CLERICAL  LIFE  107 

Christian  congregation.  It  does  seem  as  if 
justice  were  indeed  blind  which  crowns  pious 
laziness  with  favour  and  thrusts  honest  work 
into  the  pillory,  and  I  quite  understand  that  you 
are  tempted  to  regard  religious  opinion  with 
contempt,  especially  if  it  be  orthodox. 

You  will,  however,  pardon  me  for  suggesting 
that  your  indignation  ought  not  to  have  been 
poured  on  that  benevolent  -  looking  man  who 
preceded  me  in  your  study,  and  to  whom  you 
appear  to  have  expressed  your  mind  with  much 
freedom.  Granted  that  he  never  had  the  benefit 
of  University  culture,  and  has  not  even  our 
antiquated  authority  Ewald  in  his  house  ;  granted 
that  he  has  the  misfortune  to  be  rich  and  to  hold 
conservative  views  in  faith.  Let  us  indeed  admit 
at  once,  as  you  seemed  to  have  hinted  to  him 
more  or  less  politely,  that  he  was  a  Philistine 
and  bourgeois  to  the  backbone.  Still  he  has 
something  to  say  in  this  matter,  and  was  not  of 
necessity  guilty  of  impertinence  in  his  remon- 
strance. Unless  I  am  mistaken,  he  gave  largely 
to  build  your  handsome  church,  and  has  backed 
you  up  in  all  your  work  with   hearty  goodwill. 


io8  THE  CLERICAL  LIFE 

He  is  well  known  in  the  city  as  an  honourable, 
able,  modest  man — one  who  has  brought  great 
credit  on  the  Christian  name.  No  one  has  ever 
called  him  a  fool  or  a  hypocrite.  Remember  also 
that  a  man  of  affairs  is  more  likely  than  a  scholar 
to  form  a  sane  judgment  on  the  drift  of  things. 
If  that  kind  of  man  is  alarmed,  you  may  take  for 
granted  that  he  has  reasonable  cause,  and  it  was 
not  good  manners,  to  say  the  least,  to  pelt  him 
with  critical  jargon  and  refuse  him  reasonable 
satisfaction.  Perhaps  you  are  the  only  man 
living  that  would  treat  him  with  insolence,  and 
you  are  his  minister  and  might  be  his  son. 
Excuse  this  plainness  ;  it  is  not  his  white  hair, 
although  one  need  not  be  ashamed  to  show 
respect  to  age,  it  is  rather  his  face,  as  I  saw  it 
on  the  stair,  which  stirs  me.  It  was  of  one  who 
had  suddenly  lost  a  friend. 

Do  not  fling  down  my  letter  at  this  point 
and  become  heroic,  protesting  that  no  one  has 
a  right  to  dictate  what  you  are  to  preach,  and 
that  you  will  not  sell  your  conscience  for  gold. 
Make  a  manly  effort  and  refuse  the  luxury  of  a 
parallel  between  yourself  and  Galileo.     It  is  a 


THE  CLERICAL  LIFE  109 

little  hackneyed  and  entirely  out  of  correspon- 
dence. You  will  not  be  persecuted  or  put  out 
of  your  church  if  you  persist  in  re-editing  the 
Old  Testament.  That  worthy  man  will  quietly 
slip  away  to  some  place  where  the  drone  of  the 
Hexateuch  is  not  heard,  leaving  his  heart  behind 
him,  and  a  number  of  old-fashioned  people  will 
disappear.  Your  congregation  may  become 
small,  but  this  will  not  be  because  people  are 
afraid  of  the  light ;  it  will  be  because  your 
sermons  are  so  tiresome ;  a  few  will  always 
remain  for  the  sake  of  your  wife  and  children. 
Disabuse  your  mind  of  the  idea  that  you  are 
a  martyr ;  your  congregation  will  be  the  martyrs. 
My  heart  grew  very  tender  in  the  end  to  the 
old  saints  in  your  church,  who  do  not  write  nasty 
letters  or  talk  against  you,  who  love  and  pray 
for  you.  They  have  inherited  certain  ideas  about 
the  form  of  the  Bible  which  may  be  inaccurate 
— and  there  you  and  I  might  agree — but  which 
they  cannot  now  exchange,  and  you  set  yourself 
to  explode  them  every  second  Sunday  for  the 
space  of  a  year.  Worship  in  St.  Origen's  is  like 
living    in    the    Riviera    during    the    earthquake 


no  THE  CLERICAL  LIFE 

season  ;  you  never  know  what  wall  in  your  villa 
will  crack  next,  and  it  gets  on  the  nerves.  The 
twenty-third  Psalm  used  to  be  a  green  pasture, 
but  now  you  have  turned  it  into  an  opportunity 
for  drawing  a  parallel  between  David  and  Robin 
Hood,  with  the  view  of  showing  the  improbability 
of  the  Book  of  Psalms  coming  from  a  bandit. 
The  very  name  of  Isaiah  makes  the  pews  to 
tremble,  for  you  began  with  two  prophets,  and 
now  no  one  can  calculate  the  number  of  anony- 
mous writers  that  have  gone  to  complete  the 
book.  And  I  think  you  yourself  felt  afterwards 
that  it  was  a  mistake  to  take  the  53rd  of  Isaiah 
for  a  sermon  on  Good  Friday,  and  discuss  the 
identity  of  the  servant  of  the  Lord  for  forty 
minutes,  with  only  a  casual  reference  to  Christ. 
One  may  not  be  an  obscurantist,  and  yet  be  a 
little  weary  of  this  pedantry. 

You  explained  to  me  that  you  had  a  mission, 
and  that  you  dared  not  hold  your  peace.  *  How 
shall  I  answer  to  God  at  the  last  if  I  keep  back 
truth  or  leave  my  people  in  ignorance  ? '  When 
a  man  rises  to  that  height,  one  can  only  say, 
*  Quite  so,'  but  a  plain  person  may  be  pardoned 


THE  CLERICAL  LIFE  m 

if  he  tastes  the  humour  of  the  situation.  We 
are  overrun  with  prophets  nowadays  and  gro- 
tesque missions ;  but  perhaps  the  most  amazing 
prophet  that  ever  claimed  to  have  a  mission 
from  God  is  the  preacher  who  arises  to  dispel 
the  myth  of  the  Davidic  Psalms,  or  explain 
the  difference  between  the  Jehovist  and  Elohist 
documents.  Where  would  this  poor  world  be 
if  that  voice  were  silent?  'Behold,  the  darkness 
shall  cover  the  earth,  and  gross  darkness  the 
people ! '  May  it  not  be  that  you  are  taking 
yourself  too  seriously,  and  that  you  might 
abandon  this  high  walk  without  treachery  to 
conscience?  You  have  read  a  fair  number  of 
books,  and  you  have  a  just  estimate  of  your 
abilities,  but  one  may  conclude,  without  offence, 
that  you  are  not  a  critic  at  first  hand  or  an 
expert  scholar.  If  you  were,  it  would  be 
necessary  for  you  to  resign  your  charge  without 
delay,  both  for  the  sake  of  scholarship  and  your 
congregation.  As  you  are  not,  it  is  worth  your 
serious  consideration  whether  you  are  justified 
in  hindering  your  general  practice  by  semi- 
amateur   specialism.      Unload   any  useful   Bible 


112  THE  CLERICAL  LIFE 

criticism  in  your  classes,  and  let  the  pulpit  go 
free.  Why  should  you  forfeit  the  power  of  your 
preaching  to  be  a  sixth-rate  Biblical  critic  ? 

My  belief  is  that  you  are  largely  influenced 
in  this  unfortunate  effort  by  the  fact  that  a 
handful  of  sceptical  people  sit  in  your  church. 
They  are  not  five  per  cent,  of  the  congregation, 
but  their  presence  makes  you  self-conscious  and 
serves  to  deflect  your  thought.  Something 
especially  liberal  and  intellectual  must  be  placed 
before  this  company,  and  you  have  gone  hunting 
in  the  wastes  of  criticism  for  their  food.  Are 
you  perfectly  certain  that  this  class  will  be 
carried  captive  by  a  Bible  you  treat  ostentatiously 
as  ancient  literature,  or  that  after  hard  brain 
work  during  the  week  they  hunger  for  new 
problems  on  Sunday?  Could  they  not  read 
Kuenen  for  themselves,  if  this  be  their  soul's 
desire,  and  is  it  not  possible  that  they  have  come 
to  you  for  guidance  and  stimulus  in  the  spiritual 
life?  May  it  not  have  been  the  soul  of  the 
Bible  that  has  attracted  these  aliens,  and  you 
have  dissected  its  body  for  their  edification? 
They  came  for  bread,  although  they  did  not  say 


THE  CLERICAL  LIFE  113 

so,  and,  with  the  best  intentions  in  the  world, 
you  have  offered  them  a  stone. 

So  far  I  had  written  on  Saturday ;  but  as  no 
one  ought  to  send  a  letter  to  a  hard-worked 
minister  on  that  day,  I  laid  down  my  pen  before 
the  signature,  and  now  I  congratulate  myself  on 
the  delay.  Let  me  thank  you  with  all  my  heart 
for  this  morning's  sermon,  which  has  given  me 
and  many  others  a  great  lift  in  the  good  way  of 
God,  When  you  announced  your  text  from  the 
Book  of  Isaiah,  a  weary  look  came  into  many 
faces,  for  the  Evangelical  prophet  had  been 
robbed  of  his  charm  ;  but  as  you  read  the  words, 
*  Ho,  every  one  that  thirsteth,'  we  lifted  our 
heads  at  the  ring  in  your  voice — the  old  note  of 
the  Evangel — and  a  wistful,  expectant  look  came 
into  our  friend's  face.  Before  you  had  spoken 
five  minutes  the  hearts  of  the  people  were  as 
one,  and  ere  you  had  finished  strong  men  were 
moved  to  their  depths.  Coming  out,  I  over- 
heard that  good  man  say  to  a  neighbour,  *  I  'm 
going  from  home  for  two  months,  and  I  shall 
leave  with  a  glad  heart,'  and  your  F.R.S.  declared 
to  me  that  it  was  the  best  sermon  he  had  heard 

H 


114  THE  CLERICAL  LIFE 

for  many  a  day.  'What  one  desires  from  a 
preacher  in  this  day/  he  added,  '  is  not  informa- 
tion, but  faith.' 

You  have  come  into  the  trade  winds  at  last ; 
up  with  every  sail,  and  God  prosper  you. — Yours 
faithfully,  LAMBDA. 


X 

From  a  Minister  who  is  asked  to  many 
Tea-parties 


From  a  Minister  who  is  asked  to 
MANY  Tea-parties 

Dear  Mr.  Sotherby,— As  we  had  a  chat  this 
evening  at  Mrs.  Lapham's,  you  will  be  surprised 
to  get  a  letter  from  me  by  to-morrow  morning's 
post.  I  am  writing  to  you,  not  as  a  deacon  of 
the  church,  but  as  an  old  and  tried  friend,  who 
has  shown  me  many  kindnesses  from  my  student 
days  until  now.  I  wish  to  ask  your  advice  on  a 
matter  of  some  importance. 

There  is  an  impression  in  our  congregation 
that  a  minister  is  a  man  of  unbounded  leisure. 
Because  I  do  not  travel  with  you  to  the  City 
every  morning,  and  return  by  the  six  o'clock 
train  in  the  evening,  people  suppose  that  my  time 
is  unoccupied.  The  result  is  that  I  receive  daily 
invitations  to  '  At  Homes,'  tea-parties,  and  family 
gatherings.     No   one  is  more   assiduous   in   her 

117 


ii8  THE  CLERICAL  LIFE 

attentions  than  our  friend  Mrs.  Lapham.  My 
sister  Charlotte  tells  me  that  Mrs.  Lapham  con- 
siders me  unsociable,  and  thinks  that  my  manners 
need  improvement.  This  evening  she  drew  my 
sister  into  a  corner  by  herself,  and  remarked 
what  a  pity  it  was  that  Mr.  Silcox  did  not  go 
more  into  society.  *  We  are  all  fond  of  him,  my 
dear ;  we  like  his'preaching  ;  and,  of  course,  it  is 
pleasant  to  have  a  University  man  and  a  scholar 
for  one's  minister,  but  it  is  too  bad  of  your  brother 
to  shut  himself  up  in  his  study  and  to  refuse  to 
see  us  in  our  homes.  How  can  he  do  any  real 
good  unless  he  knows  his  people  personally? 
Besides,  you  must  excuse  me  for  hinting  that  a 
young  man  of  twenty-five  needs  to  have  his 
manners  polished  by  intercourse  with  the  world. 
Our  late  pastor,  Dr.  Allen,  had  most  courtly 
manners.  There  was  something  majestic  in  his 
bow,  and  he  lifted  his  hat  like  the  Prince  of 
Wales.  He  never  thought  it  beneath  him  to  drop 
in  upon  his  members.  During  his  later  ministry 
he  made  a  practice  of  coming  to  tea  with  our  family 
at  least  twice  a  week.  Of  course,  we  should  not 
demand   so  much   attention    from  your  brother, 


THE  CLERICAL  LIFE  119 

but  once  a  fortnight  he  might  surely  spend  half 
an  hour  at  my  "  At  Home/" 

I  have  a  bundle  of  notes  in  my  desk  received 
at  different  times  from  Mrs.  Lapham.  One  asks 
me  to  come  to  tea  because  her  eldest  girl  is  home 
from  school ;  another  because  the  family  have 
returned  safely  from  their  summer  holiday  at 
Boulogne.  I  was  invited  again  when  Aunt 
Martha  came  to  visit  them  from  Manchester,  and 
also  when  Bob  and  Harry  wished  to  let  me  see 
their  bicycles.  When  no  family  excuse  is  forth- 
coming, Mrs.  Lapham  hopes  I  will  call  to  talk 
over  the  little  trouble  in  the  choir,  or  to  consult 
as  to  whether  a  series  of  special  meetings  should 
not  be  immediately  organised.  When  I  go  to 
Mrs.  Lapham's  I  usually  find  about  half  of  our 
members  assembled.  My  time  is  thus  not  al- 
together wasted,  for  I  can  do  a  certain  amount  of 
pastoral  work  in  this  way.  The  ladies  who 
frighten  me  most  are  those  who  ask  me  to  teie-d- 
tite  tea-drinkings.  One  of  these  is  Miss  Belhurst, 
who  sends  a  confidential  note  about  once  in  three 
weeks  by  the  hands  of  her  little  servant.  The 
note  is  sealed  with  black  sealing-wax,  and  has 


I20  THE  CLERICAL  LIFE 

*  Private '  marked  in  large  letters  on  the  envelope. 
Inside  it  runs  somewhat  like  this : — 

'Dear  Mr.  Silcox, — I  know  your  time  is 
much  occupied  ;  but  as  there  is  a  private  matter 
on  which  I  am  anxious  to  talk  with  you,  I  shall 
be  pleased  if  you  can  come  to  tea  at  five  o'clock 
this  afternoon/ 

The  first  time  I  accepted  Miss  Belhurst's  in- 
vitation, I  found  that  she  wished  to  criticise  my 
Sunday  evening's  sermon.  *  I  am  one  of  your 
oldest  members,  and  you  must  not  complain  if  I 
find  your  preaching  scarcely  equal  to  Dr.  Allen's. 
There  is,  it  seems  to  me,  a  certain  want  of  definite- 
ness.  Not  that  I  find  any  actual  fault,  I  am 
conscious  merely  of  a  vague  feeling  of  uneasiness. 
In  these  days  of  doubt  and  criticism — but  here 
comes  Lizzie  with  the  muffins  and  the  buttered 
buns,  and  I  must  keep  the  little  present  I  had 
prepared  for  you  till  after  tea.'  The  little  present 
consisted  of  five  bulky  manuscript  books,  contain- 
ing Miss  Belhurst's  notes  of  Dr.  Allen's  sermons. 
She  recommended  me  to  study  them  carefully, 


THE  CLERICAL  LIFE  121 

and  mould  my  style  on  Dr.  Allen's.  On 
another  occasion  Miss  Belhurst  sent  for  me 
because  she  had  been  much  impressed  by  my 
sermon  on  'Secret  Trials.'  She  wondered  if  I 
could  have  intended  it  for  her,  as  at  that  moment 
she  was  suffering  from  a  cruel  trouble,  of  which 
she  had  not  breathed  a  word  to  any  one.  The 
truth  was,  her  poor  brother  William  had  decided 
to  marry  a  lady  ten  years  older  than  himself 
and  with  no  money.  Miss  Belhurst  asks  my 
advice  about  investments,  and  during  the  recent 
American  crisis  sent  for  me  at  ten  o'clock  one 
evening  to  know  whether  she  should  sell  out  her 
New  York  railway  shares.  Once  I  gently  hinted 
that  my  congregation  were  responsible  for  wast- 
ing much  of  my  time.  '  Yes,  indeed,'  she  replied, 
*  I  have  often  wondered  at  Mrs.  Lapham's  incon- 
siderateness.' 

Other  kind  friends  who  have  lately  found 
excuses  for  asking  me  to  tea  are  Mrs.  Brock, 
who  has  set  up  a  boarding-house,  and  wished  to 
introduce  me  to  her  first  visitors  ;  and  Miss  Mac- 
intyre,  who  has  settled  in  a  flat.  We  have,  as 
you  know,  several  ladies'  boarding-schools  con- 


122  THE  CLERICAL  LIFE 

nected  with  the  church,  and  it  seems  a  little  hard 
that  I  should  be  expected  to  attend  their 
breaking-up  parties  every  term.  I  am  hopelessly 
unmusical,  yet  the  head  teacher  rushes  up  as  I 
am  leaving,  and  begs  me  to  wait  another  half- 
hour  to  hear  Agnes  play  *  The  War  March  of  the 
Priests'  in  Athalie,  or  to  listen  to  little  Aileen's 
wonderful  performance  on  the  violin. 

I  have  tried  my  best  to  please  these  hospitable 
friends ;  but  from  what  my  sister  tells  me,  the 
church  is  honeycombed  with  jealousies.  This 
evening  I  find  a  note  from  Miss  Belhurst, 
earnestly  hoping  she  has  done  nothing  to 
offend  me,  as  I  had  refused  to  take  tea  with  her 
on  Wednesday,  and  yet  her  servant  had  seen  me 
go  into  Mrs.  Lapham's  this  evening.  Miss  Play- 
fair,  principal  of  one  of  the  ladies'  schools,  trusts 
I  will  not  desert  her  this  Easter  as  I  did  last 
year  ;  for  she  attributes  the  slight  falling  off  in  the 
numbers  to  the  fact  that  I  went  to  Miss  Padge's 
and  Miss  May's  schools,  but  was  in  Birmingham 
on  the  day  of  her  *  entertainment' 

The  letters  I  dread  most  are  those  which  begin 
with  apologies.     Here  is  a  specimen  of  them  : — 


THE  CLERICAL  LIFE  123 

'  Dear  Mr.  Silcox, — We  all  know  a  minister's 
time  is  valuable,  and  that  the  study,  not  the 
drawing-room,  is  your  congenial  sphere,  but  my 
husband — and  you  know  what  a  busy  man  he  is 
— thinks  you  take  too  little  recreation.  He 
therefore  joins  with  me  in  hoping  that  you  will 
not  think  it  a  great  liberty  if  we  ask  you  to 
come  to  us  to-morrow  at  four.  We  have  just  had 
several  chests  of  tea  from  Ceylon,  where  our  son 
is  a  planter,  and  we  are  anxious  that  you  should 
try  it.  If  dear  Miss  Charlotte  will  accompany 
you,  we  shall  feel  you  are  both  doing  a  great 
favour  to  our  boy,  who,  by  the  way,  was  a 
constant  admirer  of  your  preaching. — Yours  very 
sincerely,  L.  E/ 

I  was  unfortunately  prevented  from  tasting 
L.  E.'s  Ceylon  tea  ;  but  Charlotte  met  this  lady 
about  a  week  ago,  and  was  informed  that  it  was 
very  doubtful  whether  the  family  would  be  able 
to  remain  in  connection  with  the  congregation,  as 
their  business  was  increasing  so  rapidly  that  they 
were  thinking  of  moving  to  the  West  End. 

Can  you  do  anything  to  protect  me  from  these 


124  THE  CLERICAL  LIFE 

invitations  ?  My  list  for  next  week  is  longer  than 
ever.  On  Monday  I  have  promised  to  take  tea  with 
old  Mrs.  Led  well,  to  celebrate  the  news  of  her  son's 
safety  in  the  Transvaal.  On  Tuesday,  Miss  Bel- 
hurst  hopes  I  will  look  in  for  half  an  hour,  as  it 
is  her  fifty-seventh  birthday,  and  she  feels  lonely 
with  none  of  her  relatives  near  her.  Mrs.  Lap- 
ham  reminded  me  this  evening  that  Wednesday 
was  her  quarterly  tea-drinking  for  the  girls  of  her 
Bible-class,  who  were  looking  forward  to  an 
evening  with  their  minister.  On  Thursday,  Mrs. 
Brock  hopes  I  will  spare  time  to  take  tea  at  her 
boarding-house,  as  she  specially  wishes  to  in- 
troduce to  me  a  young  gentleman  of  wonderful 
artistic  talent,  who,  with  a  little  timely  assistance, 
would  become  a  famous  painter. 

For  some  time  I  had  a  feeling  of  warm  respect 
and  admiration  for  the  Achesons,  the  new  family 
who  settled  in  the  church  last  autumn.  I  saw 
almost  nothing  of  them,  but  instinctively  I 
regarded  them  as  friends.  I  turned  with  a 
positive  relief  from  the  pews  of  those  with  whom 
I  had  drunk  tea  on  Friday,  or  expected  to  drink 
tea   on    Monday,   to    this    sensible,    considerate 


THE  CLERICAL  LIFE  125 

household  from  whom  I  had  never  once  received 
an  invitation.  Alas  !  when  I  came  home  from 
Mrs.  Lapham's  this  evening,  the  first  letter  I 
opened  was  from  Mrs.  Acheson.  They  were  new 
people,  she  said,  and  had  feared  it  might  be 
taking  a  liberty  to  ask  the  pastor  to  tea.  She 
trusts,  however,  I  will  come  next  Friday  evening, 
when  she  and  her  husband  will  have  pleasure  in 
showing  me  several  curious  idols  and  strings  of 
shells  sent  home  by  her  brother,  who  is  a 
missionary  in  the  South  Seas. 

You  will  understand  that  I  find  myself  in  a 
somewhat  serious  dilemma  ;  and  as  my  lady  friends 
refuse  to  take  pity  on  me,  I  must  throw  myself 
on  the  kindness  of  the  deacons,  and  especially  of 
yourself.  My  only  hope  of  success  in  this  church 
is  to  devote  my  time  to  my  proper  work  of  study 
and  preaching,  and  I  wish  you  would  let  it  be 
known  that  I  find  it  impossible  to  attend  any 
further  tea-drinkings. — Yours  very  truly, 

Henry  Silcox. 


XI 

To  a  Young  Minister  who  refused  to  wear  a 
White  Tie 


To  A  Young  Minister  who  refused 
TO  WEAR  A  White  Tie 

My  dear  p., — The  report  of  your  induction 
services  has  interested  me  greatly.  I  am  de- 
lighted that  you  can  send  such  a  cheering  account 
of  your  settlement  and  its  prospects,  social  and 
spiritual.  One  sentence  in  your  letter  moves  me 
to  reply  sooner  than  I  might  otherwise  have  done. 
You  say,  inter  alia,  that  after  careful  considera- 
tion you  are  quite  resolved  never  to  wear  a  white 
tie,  which  you  describe  as  *a  wretched  rag  of 
clericalism.'  I  presume  you  will  relax  this  rule 
at  dinner-parties,  and  appear  then  like  everybody 
else.  Your  vow  only  applies  to  those  times  and 
seasons  when  the  ordinary  man's  necktie  is  not 
white.  Well,  you  have  some  excellent  precedents 
for  your  departure  in  Mr.  Spurgeon  and  Dr. 
Dale,  not  to  mention  minor  prophets.  I  am  not 
sure  whether  they  and  you  have  perfectly  recon- 
ciled   theory   and    practice    in    this    matter    of 

I 


130  THE  CLERICAL  LIFE 

ministerial  costume.  Few  of  us  are  entirely 
consistent  with  our  dearest  principles ;  and  I 
suspect  that  even  you  will  not  stand  up  to  preach 
in  the  light  summer  suit  and  parti-coloured 
cravat  which  are  usual  among  the  laity  of  your 
own  age.  It  is  curious  how  innocently  that  poor 
*  rag  of  clericalism  '  began.  Early  in  this  century 
the  white  neckcloth  was  common  to  all  pro- 
fessional men  ;  the  lawyer  and  the  physician  as 
well  as  the  parson.  I  remember  myself  an  ancient 
doctor,  and  a  still  more  ancient  solicitor,  who  pre- 
served the  custom  of  their  youth,  and  never  wore 
anything  else.  But  in  our  day  it  survives  only 
among  ministers  of  religion,  and  in  this  way  it  has 
become  practically  their  outward  and  official  badge. 
You  reject  it,  because  you  dislike  what  Mr.  Raskin 
calls  '  an  offensively  celestial  uniform.'  And  I 
have  heard  you  confess  your  instinctive  dread 
lest  you  should  degrade  into  a  religious  official. 

And  yet,  after  all,  my  dear  P.,  be  honest  and 
say  whether  you  have  not,  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
joined  this  clerical  class,  of  which  the  white  tie  is 
a  recognised  conventional  symbol.  You  have 
had    some  years    of   training  at  a    theological 


THE  CLERICAL  LIFE  131 

college  to  fit  you  for  this  special  task.  You  have 
been  appointed  to  a  distinctive  office  in  your 
Church,  whose  functions  are  sui  generis  ;  and  by 
virtue  of  that  office  you  take  a  corresponding 
public  rank  in  your  town.  You  are  already 
drawing  a  regular  stipend  (I  only  wish  it  were 
larger)  from  your  position  as  a  Christian  minister. 
You  will  forgive  me  for  writing  thus  frankly.  I 
know  that  you  dislike  the  idea  of  being  paid  for 
doing  good.  There  seems  to  you — as  to  many 
high-minded  men — something  like  degradation  in 
taking  money  for  spiritual  service.  St.  Paul 
allowed  it,  indeed ;  but  he  mostly  refrained  from 
using  his  own  permission.  And  if  you  had  your 
way,  you  would  prefer  to  go  tent-making  with  St. 
Paul,  or  spectacle-making  with  Spinoza. 

It  is  perfectly  true  that  a  minister  often  pockets 
a  good  deal  of  pride,  which  is  near  akin  to  self- 
respect,  when  he  accepts  a  salary.  But  the  differ- 
entiation of  functions  in  modern  life  is  such  that 
*  separated  ministers '  are  as  indispensable  for  the 
Church  as  officers  are  for  the  army.  And  neither 
of  the  two  classes  need  be  ashamed  of  drawing 
their  pay.      It  would  be  sheer  waste  of  time  for 


132  THE  CLERICAL  LIFE 

you  to  go  and  earn  your  living  at  some  drudgery, 
and  then  to  give  the  margin  and  remnant  of  your 
energies  and  leisure  to  the  service  of  the  Church. 
If  only  on  the  grounds  of  simple  economy  of 
labour  you  consent  to  be  '  set  apart ; '  and,  more- 
over, if  you  had  no  admitted  fitness  for  the  work 
— if  you  felt  no  peculiar  vocation  for  it — you 
would  not  venture  to  become  a  minister  at  all. 

Now  I  entirely  sympathise  with  your  own 
feeling  that  out  of  this  necessary  and  inevitable 
separateness  there  arises  a  real  danger.  All  the 
history  of  the  Church  proves  how  easily  the 
pastor  and  the  prophet  gravitate  into  the  priest. 
And  to  repudiate  sacerdotal  theories  is  no 
guarantee  against  the  fatal  spirit  of  profession- 
alism was  uns  alle  bdndigt^  and  whose  taint  creeps 
over  the  heart  unawares.  Why,  the  very  famili- 
arity of  a  religious  teacher  with  what  is  sacred 
is  apt  to  harden  and  coarsen  his  own  inward 
sensibility.  The  late  Mr.  George  Dawson  was 
the  most  anti-clerical  of  men  ;  yet  of  him  George 
Eliot  wrote  regretfully :  *  I  imagine  it  is  his 
fortune,  or  rather  misfortune,  to  have  talked  too 
much,  and  too  early,  about  the  greatest  things.' 


THE  CLERICAL  LIFE  133 

*Is  there  no  danger'  (asks  Maurice)  'that  we 
shall  play  with  the  most  dreadful  words  as  if  they 
were  counters,  shall  use  the  names  of  Heaven  and 
Hell  and  of  God  Himself  as  if  they  were  mere 
instruments  of  our  trade?  Is  there  no  danger 
that  there  shall  be  nothing  answering  in  our  acts 
to  our  words,  that  we  shall  be  more  grovelling 
than  ordinary  men  in  one,  in  proportion  as  we  are 
more  magnificent  in  the  other?'  I  am  glad  that 
you  do  feel  this  danger  ;  but  surely  it  lies  in  the 
nature  of  the  situation  itself;  it  is  absolutely 
independent  of  any  accidents  of  costume. 

You  will  find,  indeed,  that  it  is  one  peculiar 
hardship  of  a  minister's  calling  that  he  dare  not 
permit  himself  to  share  that  immense  relief  which 
comes  to  other  men  from  mere  routine.  A 
medical  student,  for  instance,  gets  so  habituated 
to  the  dissecting-room  that  his  first  natural 
revulsion  is  lost  in  the  absorbing  interest  of  his 
study.  The  most  tender-hearted  doctor  learns  to 
suppress  his  sympathies  for  the  sake  of  his  work. 
A  surgeon  cannot  afford  to  have  nerves ;  he  grows 
efficient  as  he  is  able  to  operate  mechanically, 
without  regard  for  the  pain  that  it  is  his  duty  to 


134  THE  CLERICAL  LIFE 

inflict.  But  take  the  case  of  a  minister  who  has 
to  h'sten  to  confessions  of  sin,  such  as  conie  un- 
invited to  every  good  shepherd  of  souls.  No  task 
is  more  repulsive,  and  it  must  never  grow  less 
repulsive.  You  dare  not  let  familiarity  with  the 
details  of  moral  disease  dull  and  deaden  your 
hatred  of  what  is  itself  wrong.  Whatever  skill 
you  may  gain  to  deal  with  such  a  case  will  be  in 
exact  proportion  to  your  delicate  conscience  and 
your  keen,  passionate  sensibility  to  evil.  If  you 
once  come  to  look  at  sin  in  a  merely  professional 
light,  you  will  have  lost  your  power  as  a  spiritual 
guide.  The  routine  which  brings  such  merciful 
relief  to  other  men's  work  is  for  you  a  continual 
snare. 

There  are  other  drawbacks  in  belonging  to  the 
clerical  class.  The  sense  of  it  creates  a  subtle, 
invisible  barrier  between  ordinary  people  and  the 
parson.  They  stand  mentally  aloof  from  you. 
They  use  reserve.  They  are  hardly  ever  quite 
natural.  They  treat  you,  half  unconsciously,  like 
a  creature  of  a  different  order  from  themselves. 
They  behave  as  though  there  were  no  exceptions 
to  the  old  epigram  which  has  divided  humanity 


THE  CLERICAL  LIFE  135 

into  three  sexes — men,  women,  and  parsons. 
Even  your  friends  in  your  own  congregation,  who 
repudiate  the  theory  of  a  priesthood  as  vigorously 
as  you  do  yourself,  will  quietly  try  to  thrust  orders 
upon  you  by  a  kind  of  informal  plebiscite.  They 
like  their  minister,  as  they  say,  to  be  a  minister. 
And  without  meaning  it  they  will  do  their  best  to 
turn  his  human  influence,  his  natural  spontaneous 
example,  into  a  formal,  artificial,  professional  thing. 
You  see  that  I  do  not  underrate  the  character- 
istic difficulties  of  your  recognised  position  as  a 
Christian  teacher.  That  position  brings  any  man 
subtle  perils  and  delicate  intoxications  peculiar  to 
itself.  The  danger  of  professionalism  is  one  of 
the  easiest  and  deadliest.  But  that  danger  has 
only  the  most  shadowy  connection  with  the 
presence  or  absence  of  a  white  tie.  Cucullus 
non  facit  monachum.  The  temptation  to  legal 
casuistry  would  remain  unimpaired  in  the  law 
courts  even  if  Her  Majesty's  judges  decreed  that 
no  barrister  need  henceforth  wear  a  wig.  You 
must  not  exaggerate  a  trifling  detail  of  costume 
as  though  it  determined  the  habit  and  temper  of 
your  inner  self.     If  not  now,  at  any  rate  when  you 


136  THE  CLERICAL  LIFE 

grow  older,  you  will  recognise  that  in  such  out- 
ward forms  it  is  generally  wiser  to  take  that 
course  which  the  tradition  of  our  country  or  our 
Church  suggests,  because  that  'implies  less  of 
self-dependence  and  self-will.' 

And  there  is  a  real  danger  in  this  revolt  against 
whatever  seems  professional,  lest  you  should 
think  that  you  need  not  be  different  from  ordinary 
people — that  you  ought  not  to  be  better  than  the 
crowd.  Whatever  garments  you  don  or  doff,  the 
fact  remains  that  you  are  a  man  consecrated  and 
set  apart,  called  to  the  most  sacred  office,  trained 
for  the  highest  work  on  earth.  From  one  point 
of  view  you  cannot  be  too  genial,  too  brotherly, 
too  humane.  But  from  the  other  point  of  view 
you  can  very  easily  become  too  worldly,  too 
secular,  too  much  like  common  men  in  tone 
and  speech  and  style  and  manner.  The  indis- 
pensable thing  about  Holy  Orders  is  not  the 
ordination  but  the  holiness.  The  white  flower  of 
a  blameless  life  is  far  more  distinctive  than  any 
costume,  and  the  pure  heart,  kept  unspotted  from 
the  Church  as  well  as  the  world,  will  stamp  you 
unmistakably  as  a  priest  of  the  Most  High  God. 

Omicron. 


XII 

To  a  Minister  who  becomes  periodically 
*  Run  Down ' 


To  A  Minister  who  becomes  periodically 
*RuN  Down' 

My  dear  B., — I  am  happy  to  hear  that  you  have 
carried  home  a  fresh  stock  of  vigour  from  our 
sunshine  and  sea-breezes.  In  this  quiet  village 
few  people  arrive  to  quicken  one's  memories  and 
interests  as  you  did  during  the  fortnight  which 
you  made  so  enjoyable  to  your  host.  May  I  take 
an  old  man's  privilege,  and  write  what  has  been 
on  my  mind  ever  since  you  left  me  last  week? 
From  what  I  saw  of  you  here,  as  well  as  from 
what  you  let  fall  about  your  habits  in  our  long 
rambling  conversations,  I  am  seriously  concerned 
lest  you  should  drift  into  a  chronic  state  of  'slack- 
ness ' — physical  and  mental — simply  through  bad 
management  of  yourself.  You  are  happy  in 
having  a  sound  constitution,  a  congenial  profes- 
sion, a  healthy  district,  and  no  family  troubles. 
Yet  you  confess  that  you  are  constantly  getting 

139 


I40  THE  CLERICAL  LIFE 

'  out  of  sorts ' ;  you  often  drag  on  for  weeks  *  with 
all  the  wheels  of  being  slow' ;  your  work  is  done 
wearily  and  haltingly  ;  the  spirit  is  languid  and 
the  flesh  is  indisposed  ;  and  without  being  actually 
ill,  you  miss  all  the  spring  and  zest  which  make 
life  worth  living  to  a  man  of  your  age.  Not  that 
you  have  any  disease  ;  you  talk  about  '  brain-fag,' 
but  your  doctor  has  assured  you  again  and  again 
that  your  only  ailment  is  *  being  below  par.'  And, 
as  you  keep  up  your  wholesome  prejudice  against 
stimulants,  he  drenches  you  with  tonics  and  pre- 
scribes more  extra  holidays  than  you  can  possibly 
afford  to  take.  Will  you  forgive  me  for  saying 
that  you  can  almost  certainly  cure  yourself  if 
you  choose,  and  that  it  is  your  very  serious  duty 
to  try?  No  spiritual  gifts  can  absolve  a  minister 
from  the  elementary  obligation  to  keep  his  body 
and  mind  at  their  highest  possible  pitch  of  effici- 
ency for  the  work  which  is  given  him  to  do.  For 
though  a  man  cannot  be  uniformly  at  his  best, 
yet  I  am  certain  that  the  inferior  preacher  who  is 
at  his  best  has  far  more  momentum  than  the 
pulpit  genius  who  is  '  out  of  sorts '  and  '  run  down.' 
The  secret  of  many  a  dull,  slovenly,  futile  sermon 


THE  CLERICAL  LIFE  141 

is  the  depressed  vitality  of  the  minister.  To 
fulfil  your  vocation  you  must  steadily  endeavour 
after  what  Browning  defined  as  *a  life  lived  at 
the  top  of  the  wave ' ;  whereas  at  present  you  are 
far  too  apt  to  lie  tossing  and  weltering  uneasily 
in  its  trough. 

Of  all  men  that  I  know  you  are  readiest  to 
scoff  at  Manichean  superstitions ;  and  yet  even 
you  fall  short  of  a  full  Christian  faith  in  the 
worth  and  dignity  of  the  human  body.  You 
drop  unawares  into  that  quite  common  heresy 
which  made  St.  Francis  call  his  body  '  Brother 
Ass/  and  treat  it  accordingly  as  a  drudge,  to  be 
ignored  so  long  as  it  did  not  absolutely  break 
down.  But  '  the  soul's  dark  cottage '  has  become 
a  shrine  which  we  are  forbidden  not  only  to 
defile,  but  to  misuse  or  to  neglect.  Is  not  one 
practical  Christian  duty  to  *  present  our  bodies,' 
and  therefore  to  preserve  our  bodies,  day  by  day, 
in  the  best  possible  condition  ?  The  fisher  of 
men  will  find  himself  a  very  incomplete  angler 
if  he  takes  no  pains  to  keep  himself  in  what 
sportsmen  call  'good  form.'  What  you  need — 
for   your   work's    sake — is    to    go    into    regular 


142  THE  CLERICAL  LIFE 

training,  and  to  make  your  food  and  drink,  and 
exercise  and  recreation,  and  study  and  prayer, 
all  combine  to  fit  you  for  the  cure  of  souls. 

'  Let  us  not  always  say, 
"  Spite  of  this  flesh  to-day 
I  strove,  made  head,  gained  ground  upon  the  whole  ! " 
As  the  bird  wings  and  sings, 
Let  us  cry,  "  All  good  things 
Are  ours,  nor  soul  helps  flesh  more,  now,  than  flesh  helps 
soul!"' 

The  truth  is,  you  secretly  despise  the  details 
of  living.  You  pay  no  regard  to  the  manage- 
ment of  yourself.  You  fancy  it  a  noble 
Spartan  virtue  to  neglect  your  body;  and 
so,  without  being  an  ascetic,  you  just  go  on 
carelessly,  casually,  while  the  mechanism  is  con- 
tinually running  down  through  sheer  inattention. 
For  instance,  you  were  confessing  to  me  how 
rarely  you  keep  any  sort  of  rule  as  to  bedtime, 
so  that  sleep  grows  shy  of  such  an  erratic  wooer, 
and  you  wake  next  day  jaded  and  depressed. 
We  should  hear  of  fewer  nervous  breakdowns  if 
men  understood  that  regular  sleep  is  as  impor- 
tant as  regular  food.  As  to  exercise,  I  have 
heard  you  plead  the  hoary  old  excuse — you  are 


THE  CLERICAL  LIFE  143 

too  busy.  That  may  be  quite  true,  but  it  is  quite 
invalid.  You  have  no  business  to  be  so  busy. 
You  will  double  your  real  efficiency  when  you 
cancel  half  your  small  engagements.  It  is  short- 
sighted, as  well  as  unapcstolic,  to  turn  yourself 
into  a  parochial  'handy  man.'  Believe  me,  the 
snare  of  the  fin-de-siecle  parson  is  to  attempt 
everything  himself;  and  as  a  penalty,  he  manages 
to  do  nothing  better  than  some  one  else  could  do 
it  in  his  stead.  You  are  a  Christian  specialist, 
and  on  the  very  lowest  ground  you  cheapen  your 
office,  as  well  as  dissipate  your  energy,  by  this 
endless  entanglement  in  petty  local  affairs ;  it  is 
fatal  to  the  mental  aloofness  and  spiritual  detach- 
ment which  your  proper  work  requires.  That 
work  can  never  be  done  as  it  deserves  while  you 
go  on  living  under  the  harassing  strain  of  burdens 
which  are  no  part  of  your  real  duty.  After  all, 
you  were  not  educated  and  ordained  to  be  an 
Extension  lecturer,  or  an  election  agent.  Faith 
and  expediency  alike  call  you  away  from  these 
side  issues,  that  you  may  have  leisure  and  vigour 
to  spare  for  the  greatest  things  of  all. 

You  see  I  give  you  full  credit  for  an  indus- 


144  THE  CLERICAL  LIFE 

trious  spirit,  though  I  am  afraid  you  have  still 
to  learn  the  economics  of  ministerial  energy.  It 
struck  me  irresistibly  that  your  work  was  like 
that  of  a  machine  with  loose  bearings  and  coup- 
lings. I  suspect  that  you  want  steadily  and 
resolutely  bracing  up.  A  minister  can  generally 
arrange  his  day's  work  pretty  much  according  to 
his  own  taste  and  fancy  as  regards  the  clock. 
But  it  is  a  real  temptation  to  have  no  settled 
hours  for  settled  duties.  I  remember  a  High 
Church  vicar  telling  me  how  thankful  he  was 
for  his  daily  service  at  church,  because,  he  said, 
'you  know  that  you  have  at  any  rate  got  one 
duty  in  each  day  definitely  fixed  for  you.'  I 
expect  that  you  are  apt  to  fix  nothing  in  parti- 
cular, and  consequently  to  feel  disinclined  for 
everything  in  general. 

You  are  a  bachelor,  and  so  not  exposed  to 
those  domestic  distractions  which  sometimes  in- 
vade a  parson's  study  so  much  more  wantonly 
than  they  would  intrude  into  a  barrister's  cham- 
bers. But  you  are  all  the  more  liable  to  the 
aimless,  amiable  visitor  who  looks  in  to  see  if  you 
are  as  idle  as  himself.     You  can  never  charge 


THE  CLERICAL  LIFE  145 

yonr  mind  with  any  subject  unless  you  keep  it 
properly  insulated  ;  and  you  are  bound  to  be 
intolerant  of  interruptions  which  lead  the  current 
to  earth.  '  Enter  into  thy  closet,  and  shut-to  the 
door ' — it  is  the  only  way  to  concentrate  yourself, 
and  often  it  requires  a  severe  effort  of  will. 

One  chief  evil  of  physical  depression  is  that 
the  brain  is  less  nimble  and  alert  to  obey ;  you 
get  into  that  slip-shod  state  of  mind  which  feels 
fit  for  nothing  better  than  a  newspaper  and  a 
pipe.  *  Mental  inertia ' — our  grandfathers  called 
it  an  uglier  name — is  a  familiar  fiend  which  haunts 
the  study ;  but  even  it  can  be  exorcised  by  a  will 
resolutely  bent  on  doing  the  Father's  business. 
Who  dare  dawdle  over  such  a  task  ?  Is  it  too 
much  to  expect  that  the  man  thus  occupied  shall 
make  himself  *  business-like/  shall  cultivate  those 
elementary  habits  of  diligence  and  punctuality 
and  concentration  which  every  merchant  requires 
in  his  office,  and  which  are  not  less  necessary 
in  the  search  for  the  goodly  pearl  and  the  hid 
treasure?  Yet  some  ministers  seem  to  regard 
casualness  as  a  fine  art ;  they  accept  it  as  the 
outward  token  of  genius  or  sanctity ;   they  are 

K 


146  THE  CLERICAL  LIFE 

incapable  of  such  vulgar  duties  as  keeping  ap- 
pointments and  answering  letters.  Yet  to  be 
casual  is  always  to  be  selfish.  By  these  unbusi- 
ness-like  habits  a  man  not  only  makes  himself 
incompetent  and  unreliable,  he  simply  throws 
upon  others  the  extra  burden  of  taking  the  pains 
which  he  refuses  to  take.  I  know  quite  well  that 
you  have  a  conscience  on  this  subject ;  but  I  am 
afraid  it  is  generally  a  reproachful  conscience. 
You  have  got  into  such  a  slack  way  of  doing 
things  that  your  correspondence  is  aways  in 
arrears,  and  your  engagements  continually  ar- 
rive before  you  are  ready.  You  feel  all  the  time 
that  instead  of  being  master  of  your  work,  you 
are  letting  your  work  miserably  tyrannise  over 
you — and  this  to  a  man  of  your  temperament  is 
one  slow  and  certain  way  of  '  running  down.' 

There  is  a  grave  ethical  side  of  this  worldly 
common-sense  which  I  have  been  inflicting  on 
you.  As  a  man  falls  into  habitual  slackness 
of  body  and  brain,  his  soul  sinks  into  *a  state 
of  moral  lassitude  and  collapse.'  Whereas  the 
patience  and  perseverance  of  the  saints  shine 
brightest    in    that    fortitude    which    sets    itself 


THE  CLERICAL  LIFE  147 

steadily  to  make  the  very  best  possible  out  of 
every  hour  in  every  day.  The  best  possible  in 
your  case  will  not  seldom  be  golf,  or  music,  or 
sleep,  to  ensure  a  still  better  day  to-morrow. 
No  man  has  any  right  to  live  below  his  proper 
level,  or  to  fritter  his  highest  self  away.  Least 
of  all  dare  a  minister  suffer  himself  to  be  handi- 
capped in  his  duty  because  he  ignores  the  simple 
hygiene  which  is  observed  by  a  prize-fighter,  or 
neglects  the  elementary  self-discipline  in  trifles 
which  is  required  in  a  telegraph  clerk.  Forgive 
me  if  I  have  written  as  though  I  were  not  per- 
suaded better  things  of  you.  I  might  be  less 
concerned  if  you  had  fewer  gifts  to  squander 
and  spoil.  But  you  will  never  do  justice  to 
your  vocation  until  you  have  learnt  to  husband 
your  own  health  and  energy  and  time.  We  must 
mix  an  ounce  of  serpent  to  our  pound  of  dove. — 
Yours  most  faithfully,  Omicron. 


XIII 

To  a  Minister  troubled  by  the  Intellectual 
Disparities  in  his  Congregation 


To  A  Minister  troubled  by  the  Intellec- 
tual Disparities  in  his  Congregation 

My  dear  Sir,— Your  Monday  morning  letter  is 
brief,  but  it  really  makes  one  feel  as  uncomfort- 
able as  the  changes  between  screech  and  wail  in 
an  exceptionally  dissonant  steam  siren.  Did 
Councillor  Butterman  snore  during  the  sermon 
on  Sunday  morning  ?  or  the  young  persons  in  the 
millinecs'  pew  pass  notes  to  each  other  and  put 
on  the  airs  of  kittens?  or  was  it  the  domestic 
servant  in  full  view  of  the  pulpit  who  was  looking 
out  answers  to  questions  propounded  in  the 
Bible-class  ?  Again  you  are  bewailing  the  mental 
disparities  in  your  hearers,  and  speaking  con- 
temptuously of  their  confusing  demands  for 
absolutely  incompatible  types  of  pulpit  work. 
You  are  still  haunted  by  the  left-handed  compli- 
ment of  the  platelayer  who  said  to  you,  *  When  I 
got  home  from  service,  sir,  last  night,   my  wife 

161 


152  THE  CLERICAL  LIFE 

asked  me,  How  did  you  like  the  sermon  ?  ami  I 
said  (now,  sir,  you  must  not  be  puffed  up).  Well, 
better.  It  was  more  practical,'  It  is  a  real 
trouble  to  you  that  you  have  not  the  art  of 
winning  people  of  all  classes,  for  you  are  ambi- 
tious to  earn  the  verdict  passed  on  the  Master's 
preaching,  '  The  common  people  heard  Him 
gladly.'  Again  you  are  expressing  the  wish  for 
a  congregation  where  the  "principle  of  intellectual 
selection  has  been  at  work  for  a  generation,  and 
you  recoil  from  heterogeneous  assemblies  of  men 
and  women  who  in  birth,  education,  natural 
capacity,  self-culture,  are  a  medley.  Perhaps  you 
have  changed  your  pastorates  too  often,  and 
have  been  lacking  in  the  patience  which  allows 
time  for  some  measure  of  reciprocal  assimila- 
tion to  take  place  between  preacher  and  people. 

That  your  congregation,  looked  at  from  the 
political  standpoint,  is  composite,  partly  clay  and 
partly  iron,  is  one  of  your  minor  troubles.  You 
have  the  good  sense  to  abstain  from  touching 
those  questions  on  which  it  is  conceivable  Chris- 
tian men  may  think  differently,  although  on 
Temperance,  Peace,  and  Social  Reform  Sundays, 


THE  CLERICAL  LIFE  153 

your  trumpet  gives  no  uncertain  sound.  You 
have  sometimes  thought  your  Conservative 
hearers  have  been  a  trifle  shy,  till  the  memory 
of  the  fierce  fulminations  of  these  special  days 
has  been  softened  by  time  ;  but  you  can  bear 
that.  Now  and  again  you  are  disconcerted  when 
two  or  three  Unitarians  of  the  suburbs,  who  are 
at  a  distance  from  their  own  place  of  worship 
drop  in  on  wet  Sundays,  and  you  half  wish  they 
would  stay  away.  You  are  a  little  confused  in 
prayer,  and  do  not  feel  quite  sure  your  phrase- 
ology will  fit  in  with  their  theological  short- 
comings. If  the  sermon  affirms  any  specific 
principle  of  Trinitarianism,  you  are  half  tempted 
to  manipulate  the  awkward  dogma  into  rose- 
flushed  and  magniloquent  metaphysic.  You  have 
sometimes  resolved  you  will  never  take  a  strictly 
evangelical  subject  on  a  wet  Sunday,  lest  it 
should  be  looked  upon  as  an  affront  to  the  creed 
of  unorthodox  visitors.  Social  disparities  in  your 
congregation  give  you  occasional  trouble  and 
perplexity.  In  face  of  apparent  evidence,  you 
have  sometimes  to  try  and  convince  the  poor 
that  the  rich  seat-holders  are  not  so  cold  and 


154  THE  CLERICAL  LIFE 

supercilious  as  is  commonly  supposed,  and  you 
have  to  convince  the  rich  that  they  ought  to 
speak  to  their  humbler  fellow-worshippers  with- 
out introductions.  And  in  spite  of  all  you  do 
it  seems  impossible  to  make  the  church  a  large 
home  circle. 

The  trouble,  however,  which  looms  darkest  in 
your  soul,  is  that  the  congregation  is  such  a 
promiscuous  concourse  intellectually  considered. 
Your  church  has  had  the  misfortune  to  undergo 
frequent  changes  in  the  pastorate,  and  the  men 
who  have  succeeded  each  other  have  belonged  to 
widely  different  types.  The  metaphysician,  the 
special  missioner,  the  anecdotalist,  the  premillen- 
arian,  and  the  rhetorician  have  each  created  little 
knots  of  admirers.  And  to  this  disadvantage 
there  is  added  the  fact  that  you  are  in  a  slowly 
filling  suburb,  and  receive  temporary  or  per- 
manent adherents  from  orthodox  and  nondescript 
churches  of  the  city,  and  all  the  variations  of  the 
city  ecclesiasticisms  seem  to  be  epitomised  in 
the  people  who  come  to  you  for  lodgings  and 
possibly  a  home.  You  could  name  not  a  few 
whose  intelligence  seems  to  be  overshadowed  by 


THE  CLERICAL  LIFE  155 

their  piety,  and  a  few  with  whom  the  case  is 
reversed,  whose  piety  seems  to  stand  in  a  sub- 
ordinate relation  to  the  reason  and  imagination. 
You  have  a  sprinking  of  hearers  who  find  their 
Paradise  in  a  Browning,  a  Shelley,  or  a  Ruskin 
Society,  and  more  than  a  sprinkling  who  look 
upon  the  *  abundant  entrance,'  as  attendance  at  a 
mission-room  dominated  by  a  fervent  but  more 
or  less  crude  Plymouthism.  You  say  that  you 
are  not  equally  well  fitted  to  each  section  of  the 
congregation,  although  you  have  not  quite  lost 
your  early  versatility.  If  time  and  strength  and 
public  opinion  would  allow  of  it,  you  would  like 
to  treat  your  congregation  as  though  it  were  a 
big  school,  and  parcel  it  out  into  classes,  dealing 
in  turn  with  the  children,  the  domestic  servants, 
the  working  men,  students  and  professional  men, 
and  the  young  ladies  who  read  stories  in  the 
lighter  magazines  and  have  taste  without  strong 
intelligence.  That  would  be  your  scheme  if  you 
were  a  benevolent  autocrat  and  could  make 
people  obey.  When  you  address  the  half  of  the 
congregation  you  most  respect,  and  with  which 
you  are  in  closest  mental  sympathy,  many  of  the 


156  THE  CLERICAL  LIFE 

others  are  listless,  and  it  needs  a  whole  week  of 
careful  and  almost  effusive  pastoral  attention  to 
counteract  the  centrifugal  influence  of  one  of 
your  best  logical  or  expository  sermons.  You 
are  often  tempted  to  feel  how  content  you  would 
be  in  your  present  sphere  if  you  could  shed  the 
less  cultivated  section  of  your  hearers  and  replace 
them  by  thinkers  after  your  own  heart. 

Are  you  not  in  danger  of  classifying  your 
people  by  social  tests  and  standards?  In  the 
abstract  you  are  a  conscientious  believer  in  the 
principle  of  equality,  and  whatever  the  working 
men  and  women  of  your  congregation  may  think 
of  your  preaching,  they  speak  of  your  homeliness 
and  familiarity  with  the  warmest  gratitude.  But 
when  you  have  been  mortified  by  some  trifling 
symptom  of  inappreciation,  you  always  underline 
the  fact  that  these  uninterested  hearers  belong  to 
the  humble  strata  in  your  congregation.  Of 
course  it  was  a  pair  of  domestic  servants,  or  at 
best  dressmakers,  who  were  overheard  comment- 
ing unfavourably  upon  your  sermon  as  the  con- 
gregation was  retiring  the  other  night.  It  was  the 
greengrocer,  not  the  smart  medical  student,  who 


THE  CLERICAL  LIFE  157 

folded  his  arms  for  a  nap  as  soon  as  the  text  was 
given  out  a  fortnight  ago.  It  was  not  the 
mistress  of  the  High  School  and  her  assistants 
who  were  interchanging  notes  in  the  pew,  but 
shop-girls.  Left-handed  compliments  about  the 
sermon  come  from  unskilled  labourers,  and  not 
from  hard-headed  artisans. 

You  are  perhaps  scarcely  alive  to  the  fact,  but 
your  abstract  principle  of  equality  is  in  serious 
peril.  Some  of  your  well-to-do  people  tried  to 
capture  you  for  their  set,  and  to  indoctrinate  you 
with  disdain  for  the  set  just  below  it.  They  have 
not  yet  made  you  a  snob,  but  do  not  put  down  all 
inappreciation  to  the  poor  and  half-educated,  and 
find  your  way  into  the  pitfall  of  snobbery  by 
some  other  pathway.  You  know  perfectly  well 
that  domestic  servants  in  your  congregation 
would,  in  some  instances,  pass  a  better  examina- 
tion upon  the  topography  of  the  Pentateuch  or 
the  argument  of  the  Romans  than  their  well- 
dressed  mistresses,  and  that  the  son  of  the  patron 
Croesus  of  the  Church  has  read  less  since  he  left 
the  University,  than  the  first  half-dozen  artisans 
whose  names  come  into  your  memory,  and  that  the 


158  THE  CLERICAL  LIFE 

best  essay  of  the  season  at  your  Literary  Society 
was  given  by  a  dressmaker.  To  group  your 
hearers  like  a  public  school  into  six  forms  may 
possibly  be  an  ideal  method  of  instructing  men 
and  women  of  unequal  mental  capacities,  but 
never  assume  that  the  social  status  is  any 
criterion  of  receptivity.  And  moreover,  I  beg 
leave  to  think  that  you  would  destroy  the 
brotherhood  of  the  church  if  it  were  possible  to 
carry  out  your  fine  scheme. 

This  ideal  of  a  congregation  of  picked  hearers, 
however  grateful  to  the  idiosyncrasy  of  the 
preacher,  would  make  the  Christianity  of  the 
Church  a  dispersive  rather  than  a  uniting  power, 
not  to  speak  of  its  utter  impracticability  in  rural 
districts  and  small  towns.  You  have  to  vindi- 
cate a  place  in  the  church  not  only  for  the  poor, 
but  for  the  slow-witted  and  unread,  and  you  have 
to  vindicate  it  by  saying  something  which  will 
capture  their  attention  and  retain  their  interest, 
even  though  your  thoughtful  people  should  assert 
you  are  falling  away  a  little.  It  will  not  do  to  tell 
the  men  and  women  of  slow,  heavy  temperaments 
that  they  can  get  the  style  of  preaching  they  are 


THE  CLERICAL  LIFE  159 

craving  for  at  the  mission-room,  and  that  they 
had  better  go,  or  to  remotely  hint  it  to  them  even 
by  silently  ignoring  their  special  requirements  in 
your  ministrations.  The  fact  that  some  modern 
congregations  have  been  formed  upon  a  principle 
of  superfine  selection  is  partly  responsible  for  the 
absence  of  working  men  from  our  churches,  and 
the  drift  of  a  remnant  who  have  the  savour  of 
piety  about  them  to  mission-halls.  You  could 
interest  these  people  if  you  were  humbly  and 
patiently  to  apply  yourself  to  the  task,  for  your 
early  power  of  adaptation  has  not  entirely  died 
away.  The  crux  of  the  difficulty  is  that  you  are 
unduly  sensitive  to  the  judgments  of  your  more 
intellectual  hearers.  What  comment  will  they 
pass  upon  this  popular  performance?  You  are 
ashamed  not  of  the  Master  Himself,  but  of  the 
rudeness  and  illiteracy  of  some  of  His  sincere 
followers,  and  you  dare  not  address  them  on  the 
level  of  their  elementary  ideas.  A  quiet  curtain 
lecture  usually  rewards  these  self-sacrificing 
efforts,  and  the  superfine  say,  *  The  minister  was 
not  quite  himself  to-day.'  You  dare  not  imperil 
your  reputation   with   the   select  few.     Some  of 


i6o  THE  CLERICAL  LIFE 

these  crude  and  ungifted  souls  are  stung,  not  so 
much  by  the  superciliousness  of  the  man  in  the 
gold  ring  and  gay  apparel,  who  says,  *  Sit  by  my 
footstool/  but  by  the  fact  that  the  Master's  own 
messenger  ignores  their  needs  as  they  fill  the 
obscure  corner  to  which  the  pwde  of  the  church 
has  consigned  them. 

Are  you  not  in  danger  of  assuming  that  the 
congregation  has  been  made  for  the  minister 
rather  than  the  minister  for  the  congregation  ? 
To  a  man  who  revels  in  the  deep  truths  of  God 
and  the  art  of  presenting  them,  there  will  always 
be  a  temptation  to  look  at  things  from  his  own 
special  standpoint.  He  is  inclined  to  assume 
that  God  has  put  five  or  six  hundred  people  into 
the  world  whose  brains  have  been  organised, 
hearts  tempered,  and  education  planned  to  fit 
them  to  respond  with  prompt  fervour  to  the 
message  of  the  man  who  sermonises  according  to 
the  rigid  rule  of  his  own  temperament.  But  this 
phenomenon  of  concurrent  adaptation  is  rare. 
Never  forget  that  you  are  a  servant  of  the  church, 
and  of  its  dullest  and  least  interesting  members  for 
the  Lord's  sake.     You  are  sent  to  shepherd  the 


THE  CLERICAL  LIFE  i6i 

silliest  and  most  empty-headed  lambs,  and  not  to 
feed  a  penful  of  prize  sheep  only  tricked  out  in 
gala  ribbons  and  tinkling  with  silver  bells.  The 
Master  called  you  to  be  a  pastor  full  of  His  own 
indulgent  largeheartedness,  and  not  the  fastidious 
proprietor  of  an  ecclesiastical  raree-show.  You 
crave  general  appreciation,  not,  I  am  sure,  in  the 
spirit  of  personal  vanity,  but  as  a  sign  that  your 
ministry  is  quickening  thought  and  leaving  its 
mark  on  the  people.  It  is,  of  course,  pleasant  to 
have  knots  of  refined  and  effusive  devotees 
around  you,  but  your  vocation  is  wider  and 
nobler  than  that.  Sometimes  it  may  be  that 
your  hearers  affect  to  be  uninterested  in  your 
homilies,  for  the-  simple  reason  that  the  con- 
science has  been  stoutly  smitten,  and  the  opera- 
tion is  not  altogether  agreeable.  If  you  are  to 
say  right  and  wholesome  and  saving  things,  you 
must  pass,  like  the  Great  Teacher,  through 
epochs  of  depression  and  unpopularity.  You 
cannot  always  be  on  the  crest  of  the  wave,  and  at 
the  same  time  cross  the  unregenerate  inclinations 
of  some  of  your  hearers.  Bear  it,  and  do  not  be 
tempted    to    make    the  truth  vague,  edgeless, 

L 


1 62  THE  CLERICAL  LIFE 

saccharine.  Men  will  sometimes  forgive  the 
truth  that  is  spoken  if  it  is  couched  in  a  witticism 
or  suffused  through  an  epigram,  but  it  is  a 
question  then  if  the  truth  really  reaches  them, 
for  they  retain  the  phrase  for  its  own  sake, 
and  let  its  essence  pass  into  oblivion.  Church 
and  preacher  do  not  exist  for  intellectual  ends. 

I  am  not  sure  it  would  be  good  for  you  person- 
ally to  have  a  congregation  formed  by  a  process 
of  strict  intellectual  selection.  The  Christian  law 
of  sacrifice  must  sometimes  assert  itself  in  the 
brain,  and  the  religious  thinker  is  just  as  much 
in  danger  of  becoming  a  Sybarite  as  the  purple- 
robed  gourmand.  The  principle  that  *  he  that 
loseth  his  life  for  My  sake  shall  find  it,'  is  true 
for  the  man  who  aspires  after  scholarship  and 
literary  culture.  If  you  had  the  opportunity  of 
addressing  only  picked  hearers,  you  would  find 
that  the  task  would  narrow  the  range  of  your 
thought  and  expression.  Men  may  get  into  the 
habit  of  thinking  in  one  register  of  the  intellect 
only,  just  as  some  speakers  drone  away  in  one 
register  of  the  voice,  and  the  effect  in  both  cases 
is  equally  strident  and  unedifying.     One  or  two 


THE  CLERICAL  LIFE  163 

of  your  more  conspicuous  gifts  are  in  danger  of 
riding  rough-shod  over  their  neighbours,  and 
unless  you  can  find  the  providential  antidote, 
your  sermons  will  become  monotonous,  philo- 
sophical generalisations,  spiced  with  the  catch- 
words of  modern  literature.  You  need  colour, 
contrast,  variety,  briskness,  and  you  will  get 
these  qualities  by  giving  a  thought  now  and 
again  to  the  less  intellectual  section  of  your 
congregation,  and  settling  down  into  a  sympathy 
with  their  modes  of  thought  and  phraseology 
innocent  of  all  patronage.  All  subjects  do  not 
admit  of  a  severe  intellectual  treatment,  and 
you  will  have  to  miss  much  out  from  the  pre- 
sentation of  Christian  truth  if  you  are  governed 
by  extreme  literary  ideas. 

It  is  not  always  by  high  intellectual  methods 
that  intellectual  men  are  the  most  profoundly 
influenced.  You  have  examples  in  your  own 
church  of  those  with  whom,  times  without 
number,  you  have  discussed  the  difficulties  of 
faith  for  hours  together,  and  for  years  they 
seemed  as  incapable  of  moving  towards  definite 
goals  of  faith  as  though  the  fate  of  Lot's  wife 


i64  THE  CLERICAL  LIFE 

had  overtaken  them.  But  an  itinerant  evangelist 
with  unction,  fervour,  common  sense,  and  little 
formal  logic  came  by,  and  they  received  a  sur- 
prising spiritual  impetus.  Or  business  reverses 
and  family  bereavements  befell  them,  and  you 
feared  the  surviving  fragment  of  faith  would  be 
lost ;  but  strange  to  say,  the  imperilled  faith 
rebuilt  itself  from  the  very  foundations  under  the 
shadow  of  a  soul-racking  mystery,  and  your 
laboured  and  ingenious  apologetics  seemed  to 
count  for  little  more  than  the  wisdom  of  this 
world  in  God's  inscrutable  economies. 

I  have  spoken  plainly,  almost  truculently. 
Forgive  me.  You  have  drifted  into  a  morbid, 
miserable  mood,  and  need  to  be  well  dosed  with 
quinine  and  iron. — Believe  me,  yours  sincerely, 

Theta. 


XIV 

To  a  Minister  who  has  Studied  in  Germany 


To  A  Minister  who  has  Studied 
IN  Germany 

Dear  Mr.  Baxter, — We  are  all  heartily  sorry 
that  you  have  decided  to  leave  us  in  October. 
The  church  at  Plymouth  has  a  smaller  member- 
ship than  ours ;  the  salary,  we  understand,  is 
much  the  same,  and  there  are  two  troublesome 
deacons.  The  call  was  hardly  unanimous,  and 
the  only  possible  explanation  of  your  acceptance 
is  that  you  are  running  away  from  Herr  Diekirch. 

Three  years  ago  you  came  to  us  with  a  con- 
siderable reputation  for  learning.  You  were 
without  a  University  degree,  but  it  was  under- 
stood that  the  degree  of  Ph.D.  would  shortly  be 
conferred  upon  you  by  a  German  University. 
You  explained  that  your  course  at  the  Theo- 
logical College  was  cut  short  owing  to  your 
earnest  desire  to  study  abroad.  The  Principal 
and    Professors,    we    gathered,    had    regretfully 

107 


t68  the  clerical  LIFE 

decided  that  it  would  be  selfish  to  keep  a  young 
man  of  your  ability  in  England.  Every  one  who 
hears  you  preach  takes  away  some  pleasant 
reminiscence  of  your  student  life  at  Bonn.  It 
was  a  pity,  perhaps,  that  your  funds  only  held 
out  for  six  months ;  but  certainly,  no  young  man 
ever  bought  up  opportunity  more  eagerly.  *  To 
say  that  these  six  months  gave  a  colour  to  my 
after  life  would  ridiculously  understate  their 
influence.  They  have  saturated  my  inmost  con- 
sciousness. I  might  almost  say,  without  exag- 
geration, that  I  think  and  dream  in  German.' 
So  you  wrote  in  your  preface  to  Translations 
from  Heine  and  Uhlandy  which  were  printed  at 
the  Chronicle  office  in  our  High  Street.  The 
deacons  were  naturally  proud  to  have  secured  a 
minister  who  thought  and  dreamt  in  German. 

In  your  first  sermon,  you  delighted  us  all  with 
the  remark,  *  I  once  discussed  this  text  with  the 
learned  Professor  Hammelfleisch,  of  Bonn,  and 
he  thoroughly  upheld  the  exegesis  I  have  given 
you.'  Several  of  us  looked  about  the  chapel  in 
hopes  that  representatives  might  be  present  from 
the   Baptist  Church   round    the  corner.      Their 


THE  CLERICAL  LIFE  169 

minister  is  a  B.A.  of  London,  but  we  have  never 
heard  that  he  thinks  or  dreams  in  any  language 
but  his  own. 

Interesting  references  to  fellow-students  fre- 
quently occur  in  your  preaching.  A  brilliant 
assembly  of  geniuses  must  have  gathered  at 
Bonn  in  your  year.  Your  acquaintance  with 
scholars  is  nearly  as  extensive  as  Whang  the 
Miller's  with  rich  folk.  If  a  vicar  is  appointed  to 
a  canonry,  if  a  dissenting  minister  is  advanced  to 
a  professorship,  if  a  writer  makes  a  sudden  reputa- 
tion, we  shall  hear  next  Sunday  that  Mr.  So-and- 
So  was  a  friend  and  fellow-student  of  your  own. 
*His  promotion  does  not  surprise  me,*  you  will 
add ;  '  he  was  a  man  who  made  his  mark  even  in 
the  learned  and  exclusive  circles  of  a  foreign 
university.'  It  was  gratifying  to  know  (also  from 
pulpit  allusions)  that  you  kept  up  an  active  corre- 
spondence with  some  of  the  foremost  scholars  of 
Germany.  Half  the  children  in  the  congregation 
were  beggars  for  your  foreign  postage-stamps. 
Soon  after  you  came,  I  called  at  our  bookseller's 
for  a  few  sheets  of  thin  writing  paper.  He  said 
he  had  sold  the  last  to  you,  and  that  you  pur- 


I70  THE  CLERICAL  LIFE 

chased  six  quires  at  a  time.  The  incident 
naturally  made  a  considerable  impression  on  my 
mind.  For  some  time  we  believed  there  was  a 
conspiracy  among  the  German  Universities  as  to 
which  should  offer  you  a  professorship.  Old 
Dr.  Annesley,  who  presided  at  your  recognition 
service,  told  us  we  had  chosen  a  very  remarkable 
man,  a  man  who  would  make  a  European  repu- 
tation. 

My  first  visit  to  your  study  was  a  memorable 
occasion.  You  have  few  books,  but  nearly  all  are 
German.  The  floor  was  littered  with  German 
newspapers  and  pamphlets.  The  air  felt  heavy 
with  wisdom.  Our  former  minister  had  a  collec- 
tion of  English  sermons  in  which  he  took  great 
pride.  But,  in  presence  of  your  library,  I  felt 
ashamed  of  his  ignorance.  Portraits  of  living 
German  writers  adorned  one  wall,  and  on  another 
were  prominent  historical  and  literary  personages 
from  the  same  country.  A  certificate  of  merit, 
dating  from  your  time  at  Bonn,  was  framed  in 
gilt,  and  hung  above  the  mantelpiece. 

We  had  the  gratification,  as  a  church,  of  know- 
ing that  your  stay  in  Germany  had  done  you  no 


THE  CLERICAL  LIFE  171 

harm.  Whatever  anxiety  we  may  have  felt  on 
this  score  was  dispelled  by  Dr.  Annesley.  'Mr. 
Baxter,'  he  said, '  is  a  learned  man,  and  he  is  also 
a  safe  man — a  combination  almost  unprecedented 
in  these  dangerous  times.'  Not  unfrequently  you 
have  gone  out  of  your  way  to  warn  us  against  the 
Higher  Criticism.  *  Although  I  myself  enjoyed 
peculiar  opportunities  for  studying  the  Higher 
Criticism  at  its  fountain-head,  I  kept  myself 
resolutely  aloof  from  the  temptation.  My  dear 
master.  Professor  Hammelfleisch,  attracted  me 
from  the  beginning  by  his  noble  orthodoxy. 
Surely  the  history,  literature,  and  politics  of 
Germany  afford  a  sufficient  field  of  study,  with- 
out our  needing  to  wander  in  the  dark  and 
devious  by-ways  of  criticism  ! ' 

After  a  time,  strange  as  it  may  seem,  some  of 
our  members  grew  weary  of  Germany.  It  was  a 
proof,  as  you  truly  said,  that  we  are  not  an  intel- 
lectual people.  Minds  in  our  town  are  sluggish  ; 
the  circle  of  interests  narrow.  I  myself  was  never 
tired  of  a  subject  so  instructive  and  fertile,  and  I 
could  not  understand  why  the  young  men  of  our 
Debating  Society  took  exception  to  the  lecture 


172  THE  CLERICAL  LIFE 

you  kindly  offered  us  last  winter.  The  title  was 
'  Past  and  Present  of  the  German  People.'  The 
year  before  you  had  given  us  *  Glimpses  of  Life 
in  the  Fatherland.'  In  your  first  winter  the  sub- 
ject was  *  Rambles  by  the  Rhine,' — in  my  opinion 
a  most  delightful  and  refreshing  travel  paper. 
The  true  reason  why  so  many  objected  to  *  Past 
and  Present '  was  that  your  long  course  of  week- 
night  lectures  on  *  The  Saints  and  Reformers  of 
Germany '  had  somewhat  fatigued  their  attention. 
Still,  even  when  most  weary,  the  congregation 
was  proud  of  your  attainments.  We  looked  on 
you  as  a  great  national  authority,  the  Livingstone 
of  an  undiscovered  country.  When  you  started 
a  German  Reading  Circle,  and  presented  the 
members  with  second-hand  German  primers,  your 
fame  as  a  linguist  reached  its  zenith.  *  Every 
one,'  you  said,  *can  learn  German,  and  every  one 
ought  to  learn  it.  I  wish  the  young  to  join  my 
circle ;  but  the  middle-aged  and  the  elderly 
should  join  it  too.  Every  man,  woman,  and 
child  in  the  congregation  may,  with  persever- 
ance, become  a  perfect  German  Scholar.'  You 
achieved   the  great   triumph   of  enrolling  as   a 


THE  CLERICAL  LIFE  173 

member  Mr.  Simmons,  our  wholesale  grocer,  who 
had  never  been  known  to  read  anything  but  the 
Weekly  Chronicle  and  the  Grocet^s  World.  None 
of  us  were  very  eager  to  learn,  but  we  enjoyed 
spending  an  evening  in  your  study,  watching  the 
grave,  spectacled  faces  on  the  walls,  and  won- 
dering how  much  German  would  be  needed  to 
make  us  look  so  wise.  We  reproached  ourselves 
for  the  trouble  we  gave  you  with  our  accent,  but, 
somehow,  the  tongue  of  our  countryside  does  not 
fit  itself  easily  to  '  vons '  and  *  zus/  We  glanced 
at  the  correspondence  on  your  desk,  and  seeing 
envelopes  addressed  to  *  Herr  Professor '  this,  and 
*Herr  Doctor'  that,  we  wondered  why  the  Ph.D. 
was  still  withheld.  Sometimes  you  visited  London, 
and  then  we  imagined  you  were  called  into  con- 
sultation with  scholars  at  the  British  Museum. 
We  pictured  you  dining  with  foreign  publishers 
or  exchanging  student  memories  with  distin- 
guished authors  from  Berlin. 

All  would  have  gone  on  well  if  Herr  Diekirch 
had  not  come  to  the  town.  When  he  became 
German  master  at  the  Grammar  School,  and 
afterwards  a   member  of  our  congregation,  we 


174  THE  CLERICAL  LIFE 

flattered  ourselves  that  a  friend  worthy  of  you 
had  at  last  been  found.  But  somehow,  you  and 
he  did  not  draw  together.  At  the  Reading  Circle 
you  appealed  to  him  anxiously  on  every  trifling 
question.  We  resented  this,  for,  after  all,  he  was 
an  ordinary  German,  while  you  were  a  scholar 
and  a  future  Ph.D.  Still,  at  first,  we  saw  no 
harm  in  Herr  Diekirch.  His  mild  blue  eyes 
looked  as  if  they  had  never  known  malice  ;  his 
smile  was  kindly,  and  his  manner  slow  and 
humble.  But  not  long  after  his  arrival  reports 
began  to  creep  about  the  church.  It  was  whis- 
pered that  your  accent  was  bad,  that  your  sen- 
tences were  ungrammatical,  and  your  translations 
frequently  erroneous.  One  after  another  the 
members  of  the  Reading  Circle  dropped  off.  *  I 
am  tired  of  this  German,'  Mr.  Simmons  said  to 
me.  *IVe  been  neglectin'  business  lately,  and 
customers  don't  like  it.  Besides,  they  say  the 
minister  does  not  understand  the  language  over 
well  himself.'  Some  such  whisper  must  have 
reached  your  ears,  for  a  striking  change  took 
place  in  your  preaching.  For  four  successive 
Sundays  Bonn  was  never  mentioned,  and  Pro- 


THE  CLERICAL  LIFE  175 

fessor  Hammelfleisch  seemed  to  have  faded  out 
of  memory.  Then  the  call  from  Plymouth  came ; 
in  spite  of  our  persuasion,  you  accepted  it,  and 
already  you  are  packing  up  your  books  and 
photographs.  Herr  Diekirch  has  driven  you 
away  from  us. 

I  shall  come  to  hear  you  at  Plymouth,  and  shall 
expect  some  reference  to  Bonn  and  Hammelfleisch. 
But  take  my  advice  and  don't  weary  your  con- 
gregation. People  are  not  anxious  to  know  much 
about  Germany.  We  have  a  sincere  admiration 
for  your  ability,  but  we  shall  choose  as  our  next 
pastor  a  man  who  thinks  and  dreams  in  English. 
— Yours,  X. 


XV 

To  a  Divinity  Student 


M 


To  A  Divinity  Student 

Dear  Andrew, — Your  aunt  and  I  are  sorry 
that  the  preaching  engagement  you  have  under- 
taken for  the  coming  winter  will  prevent  you 
from  making  our  house  your  home.  We  had 
hoped  to  keep  you  with  us  until  you  were 
settled  in  a  church.  Since  the  change  must  be 
made,  I  take  this  opportunity  of  expressing  the 
gratitude  of  two  old  people  for  the  sunshine 
you  have  brought  into  their  lives  during  the 
four  years  of  your  divinity  course.  We  are  plain, 
simple  folk,  and  must  often  have  appeared  slow 
and  dull  to  a  young  man  with  five  bursaries  and 
an  honours  degree.  But  your  constant  kindness 
and  affection  have  endeared  you  to  our  hearts, 
and  for  your  companions  also  we  have  a  warm 
regard.  Perhaps  you  and  they  will  pardon  me 
if  I  touch  for  a  moment  on  one  or  two  points 
that  have  puzzled  us. 

119 


i8o  THE  CLERICAL  LIFE 

When  you  entered  the  Divinity  Hall,  we  had 
no  idea  that  the  principal  and  professors  were 
such  an  incompetent  set  of  men  as  we  now  under- 
stand them  to  be.  Their  names  were  familiar  to 
us  in  the  pages  of  newspapers  and  from  the  pro- 
ceedings of  Church  Courts.  Your  aunt  derived 
great  benefit  from  a  study  of  Professor  Mur- 
chison's  Lectures  on  Hebrews^  and  Principal 
Grant  White's  Meditations  for  Morning  and 
Evening  has  for  years  been  a  favourite  devo- 
tional book  of  my  own.  Professor  Douglas 
draws  a  crowd  whenever  he  preaches,  and  you 
would  be  the  last  to  deny  that  Professor  Shields 
scientific  researches  have  an  international  cele- 
brity. At  first  I  was  disposed  to  envy  your  good 
fortune  in  sitting  at  the  feet  of  such  men,  but  now 
I  quite  see,  from  all  you  have  told  me,  that  they 
have  been  sadly  overrated.  The  wonder  is  that 
a  great  Church  like  ours,  full  as  it  doubtless  is 
of  genius,  learning,  and  judgment,  should  have 
bestowed  its  highest  posts  on  men  who  are  so 
obviously  unfitted  to  fill  them.  Many  times  we 
have  listened  with  painful  interest  while  you 
and  your  friends   have  discussed  the  *dulness* 


THE  CLERICAL  LIFE  i8i 

of  *poor  old  Murchison/  the  *  verbosity'  of  the 
learned  principal,  the  'claptrap  sermons'  of  Dr. 
Douglas,  and  the  'crude  theories'  of  Professor 
Shiel.  Your  talk,  like  Vivian's,  seemed  at  last 
to  leave 

*  Not  even  Lancelot  brave,  nor  Galahad  clean.' 

We  were  sorry  that  the  rising  generation  of 
theologians  should  have  fallen  upon  such  evil 
times.  It  is  greatly  to  the  credit  of  yourself 
and  your  companions  that  you  should  have 
achieved  such  excellent  results  under  circum- 
stances so  discouraging. 

If  there  is  one  professor  who  has  the  affection 
of  the  Church  at  large,  ft  is  Dr.  Mitford  Ellis. 
His  stirring  missionary  sermons,  his  long  experi- 
ence in  the  foreign  field,  and  above  all  his  saintly 
character,  have  won  him  universal  admiration.  I 
am  told  that  he  is  not  popular  at  the  Hall,  be- 
cause his  method  of  teaching  is  antiquated.  It 
is  surely  a  grave  mistake  on  the  part  of  the 
Church  to  allow  any  one  who  is  at  all  antiquated 
or  out  of  date  to  have  a  part  in  the  training  of 
its  young  men.     Your  aunt  and  I  agree  that  a 


i82  THE  CLERICAL  LIFE 

reform  of  the  professorial  staff  is  urgently  de- 
manded, and  should  immediately  be  taken  in 
hand. 

Most  of  the  professors  are  exceedingly  kind  in 
asking  students  to  their  houses,  but  even  their 
hospitality  has  been  made  a  ground  of  com- 
plaint. 'Murchison  and  the  rest  of  them  ask 
everybody  without  discrimination,'  a  friend  of 
yours  remarked  one  evening.  *  Their  invitations 
are  so  cheap  that  it  is  hardly  worth  one's  while 
to  accept  them.  They  ought  to  restrict  them- 
selves, as  the  University  professors  do,  to  a  few 
of  the  best  men.'  Scraps  of  conversation  such 
as  these  have  convinced  me  that  professors 
should  not  be  too  genial. 

Your  criticism  of  ministers  would  strike  me 
as  severe  if  I  had  not  welcome  evidence  of  the 
ability  of  our  students,  who  are  certainly  destined 
to  revolutionise  the  pulpit.  Preaching,  you  have 
often  told  us,  is  at  a  miserably  low  level ;  and 
though  we,  in  our  old-fashioned  way,  still  delight 
in  Dr.  Newington's  sermons,  modelled,  as  they 
are,  on  Dr.  Chalmers',  we  admit  that  Dr.  Newing- 
ton  does  not  attract  the  young.     On  the  other 


THE  CLERICAL  LIFE  183 

hand,  since  you  are  not  here  to  argue  with  me, 
I  will  venture  to  repeat  that  I  infinitely  prefer 
his  discourses  to  that  dry,  monotonous  sermon 
preached  from  our  pulpit  last  winter  by  your 
idol,  the  Rev.  Patrick  Spens.  'Uncle  Walter/ 
you  said,  when  I  ventured  to  hint  my  disapproval 
of  the  Rev.  Patrick,  *  do  you  know  that  Mr.  Spens 
is  universally  admitted  to  be  the  ablest  man  in 
the  Church,  and  that  there  is  every  likelihood 
that  he  will  be  called  to  St.  Augustine's  as  col- 
league and  successor  ?  I  am  afraid  a  long  course 
of  Dr.  Newington  has  spoiled  your  taste  in 
preaching.'  Quite  possible,  my  dear  boy,  but 
I  am  glad  that  your  style,  however  hard  you 
may  have  tried  to  model  it  on  that  of  Mr.  Spens, 
still  retains  its  fresh  colour  and  its  warmth  of 
imagination  and  feeling. 

When  you  are  a  *  placed  minister'  —  and  a 
young  man  of  your  talent  will  not  be  kept  long 
waiting — you  will  know  how  to  avoid  all  the 
faults  which  you  so  heavily  and  so  justly  con- 
demn in  others.  You  will  never  be  guilty  of 
the  crime  of  preaching  an  old  sermon.  You 
will  never  waste  on  golf  the  precious  hours  that 


i84  THE  CLERICAL  LIFE 

should  be  given  to  pulpit  preparation.  Tennis 
matches  and  afternoon  tea-parties  will  not  lure 
you  from  the  path  of  duty.  Every  sermon  of 
yours  will  show  the  very  latest  results  of  Eng- 
lish and  foreign  scholarship.  Closely  as  you 
study,  no  one  will  ever  accuse  you  of  neglecting 
pastoral  visitation.  You  will  also  find  time  to 
write  a  number  of  useful  works  on  theological 
subjects.  You  will  take  a  prominent  part  in 
reviving  the  Liberal  party  in  your  neighbour- 
hood, and  will  exemplify  your  own  maxim  that 
a  good  preacher  must  also  be  a  good  public 
man.  It  is  a  real  satisfaction  to  your  aunt  and 
to  myself  to  remember  that  we  are  only  just 
turned  sixty,  and  may  hope  to  enjoy  your 
triumphs. 

To  touch  for  a  moment  on  a  different  topic ; 
it  has  long  been  in  my  mind  to  thank  you  for 
the  valuable  literary  counsel  and  help  I  have 
received  from  you  and  your  fellow-students.  It 
is  rare  and  delightful  to  find  young  men  with 
opinions  so  divided  and  judgments  so  matured. 
I  have  never  known  any  of  you  hesitate  for  a 
moment  in  pronouncing  on  a  book.     The  whole 


THE  CLERICAL  LIFE  185 

range  of  ancient  and  modern  literature  has  been 
passed  in  review  by  your  keen  and  searching 
intellects.  You  are  perhaps  rather  too  ready  to 
assume  that  other  people  have  read  nothing. 
'Why  don't  you  read  Byron,  Aunt  Agnes?'  I 
heard  you  say  one  evening,  when  your  aunt  was 
quietly  perusing  Mrs.  Browning.  'Mr.  Spens 
believes  we  are  on  the  eve  of  a  great  Byronic 
revival,  and  I  agree  with  him.  How  is  it  we  have 
no  copy  of  Byron  in  the  house  ?  Can  it  be  possible 
that  neither  you  nor  uncle  ever  read  him  ? ' 

Your  aunt  went  to  the  bureau  where  she  keeps 
her  wedding  presents,  and  brought  out  a  deli- 
cately bound  Byron  which  had  not  lain  there 
quite  undisturbed  through  all  these  years.  She 
was  not  in  the  least  offended  because  you  thought 
her  ignorant,  but  she  took  it  to  heart  that  you 
should  have  said  to  Dr.  Newington,  '  I  suppose, 
sir,  you  have  never  made  any  special  study  of 
the  Lake  School?'  Dr.  Newington's  Memorials 
of  Wordsworth  and  Coleridge  passed  through  three 
editions  in  the  early  forties. 

Why  is  it  that  you  and  your  classmates  so 
greatly  object   to   quotations   from   the  pulpit? 


i86  THE  CLERICAL  LIFE 

Business  men  are  not  able  to  read  so  much  as 
they  would  like,  and  it  is  refreshing  to  hear 
pretty  verses,  which  have  long  slipped  from  one's 
memory,  brought  up  again  in  a  sermon.  The 
youngest  school  of  preachers  makes  a  merit  of 
being  very  dry  and  stiff,  concealing  emotion  and 
setting  every  subject  in  the  cold  light  of  reason. 
Take  my  word  for  it,  nine  out  of  ten  church 
members  like  a  quotation  and  enjoy  an  anecdote. 
Last  winter  you  and  I  went  to  St.  Augustine's 
to  hear  the  great  Principal  Franks  of  Cambridge. 
I  came  away  enraptured.  Such  a  sermon  I  had 
never  heard  since  Dr.  Guthrie  died.  'Good 
enough,'  was  your  verdict.  *  But  this  is  the 
third  time  I  have  heard  him  quote  from  Ober- 
mann'  Depend  upon  it,  the  great  preacher 
knew  better  than  you  or  I  how  to  catch  the 
attention  of  his  hearers. 

We  have  noticed  with  pleasure  that  you  and 
your  companions  have ,  a  very  high  opinion  of 
each  other.  Professor  Shiel  has  no  microscope 
half  so  powerful  as  that  under  which  you  see 
your  comrades'  gifts  and  virtues.  I  suppose 
there  never  was  a  time  when  our  Church  was  so 


THE  CLERICAL  LIFE  187 

poor  in  teaching  ability  and  so  rich  in  brilliant 

learners.     M seemed  a  very  ordinary  young 

man  when  he  spent  his  first  evening  in  our 
house,  but  we  know  now  that  he  took  the  prize 

for   elocution    in   his    second   year.      R has 

written  an  essay  on  the  Reformation  which 
called  forth  warm  praise  from  Principal  Grant 
White.  (In  spite  of  the  painful  inferiority  of 
the  professors,  you  are  all  very  ready  to  quote 

their  compliments.)    C made  his  mark  in  the 

debating  society,  and  G construes  Hebrew 

almost  more  correctly  than  the  learned  principal. 
It  would  be  impossible  to  exaggerate  the  satisfac- 
tion with  which  your  aunt  and  I  have  seen  so  many 
brilliant  young  men  at  our  table.  Dr.  Newington 
listens  to  your  talk  with  a  smile  and  a  sigh,  and 
says  you  remind  him  of  the  'Woman  of  Three 
Cows '  in  Mangan's  ballad  : — 

*0  think  of  Donnel  of  the  ships,  the  chief  whom  nothing 

daunted — 
See  how  he  fell  in  distant  Spain,  unchronicled,  unchanted  I 
He  sleeps,  the  great  O'Sullivan,  where  thunder  cannot 

rouse — 
Then  ask  yourself,  should  ^^«  be  proud,  good  Woman  of 

Three  Cows?' 


i88  THE  CLERICAL  LIFE 

Dr.  Newington  recalls  his  own  contemporaries,  his 
'  Donnel  of  the  ships '  and  his  *  great  O'Sullivan/ 
and  he  cannot  admit  that  all  the  genius  and 
glory  of  the  Church  has  been  centred  on  the 
last  four  years. 

Long  ago,  when  your  aunt  and  I  were  young 
and  had  our  way  to  make  in  the  world,  we  took 
a  divinity  student  as  a  boarder.  His  many  ex- 
cellent qualities  were  obscured  by  what  seemed 
to  us  his  insufferable  conceit.  After  he  left 
college  we  lost  sight  of  him,  and  when  we  next 
met,  he  had  been  a  probationer  for  three  years, 
and  a  settled  minister  for  five.  He  had  de- 
veloped into  one  of  the  kindest,  most  humble, 
and  most  charitable  of  men.  The  experience  of 
real  life  had  cured  him  of  his  superficial  faults, 
and  had  brought  out  the  real  gold  of  his  char- 
acter. In  your  case,  my  dear  Andrew,  there  is 
happily  no  need  for  such  a  lengthened  process. 
At  heart  you  are  modest  and  self-distrustful,  and 
in  a  very  short  time  you  will  refuse  to  believe 
that  you  ever  carried  about  with  you  the  *air* 
of  the  divinity  hall. — Your  afTectionate  uncle, 

X. 


XVI 

To  a  Martyr  of  Procrastinating  and  Pessi- 
mistic Moods  in  Sermonising 


To   A   Martyr    of    Procrastinating    and 
Pessimistic  Moods  in  Sermonising 

My  dear  Friend, — For  many  reasons  I  wish 
you  could  correct  those  unhappy  habits  about 
which  we  talked  at  my  last  visit  to  the  Manse, 
and  of  which  your  letter  again  reminds  me.  I 
remember  your  wife  joined  in  with  allusions  to 
the  click  of  the  type-writer  long  after  Saturday 
midnight,  and  the  pacing  to  and  fro,  in  the 
intervals  of  composition,  on  the  study  floor  just 
over  the  heads  of  sleeping  babes.  Her  raillery 
was  pleasant  and  light-hearted  enough,  but  I 
could  not  help  suspecting  that  she  thought  these 
late  hours  in  the  study  a  family  nuisance,  which 
would  be  stopped  if  the  codes  of  the  household 
were  as  strict  as  those  of  the  municipality. 
Perhaps  this  in  itself  is  not  a  very  strong  reason 
why  you  should  become  a  reformed  character, 
because,  after  all,  the  arrangements  of  a  minister's 

191 


192  THE  CLERICAL  LIFE 

household,  no  less  than  those  of  a  business  man's, 
must  sometimes  give  way  to  the  exigencies  of 
public  work.  Nor  do  I  attach  very  much  import- 
ance to  what  may  be  saia  on  the  ground  of 
health,  for  to  a  man  of  average  constitution  it 
does  not  matter  much  when  he  gets  his  sleep 
so  that  he  does  get  it  in  due  proportion  some 
time ;  and  you  rightly  and  wisely  allow  yourself 
a  complete  holiday  on  Monday.  The  strong 
arguments  for  amended  methods  are  that  you 
are  constantly  accusing  yourself  of  wasting  time 
in  the  week,  and  feel  a  dissatisfaction  with  the 
meagreness  of  your  achievements  that  almost 
amounts  to  a  malady ;  your  hurry  when  close 
upon  the  sacred  responsibilities  of  pulpit  work 
is  so  great  that  you  have  scarcely  time  for  a  due 
cultivation  of  the  devotional  spirit ;  and  your 
present  method  of  mooning  drearily  over  your 
Sunday  subjects  for  two  or  three  days,  and  then 
doing  everything  with  a  gigantic  spurt,  is  apt  to 
make  the  latter  half  of  the  week  black,  bilious, 
fevered,  unbelieving,  when  it  ought  to  be  full  of 
bright  anticipations  of  the  power  of  the  Word. 
From  neither  the  intellectual   nor  the  religious 


THE  CLERICAL  LIFE  193 

standpoint  is  it  well  for  you  to  do  your  work 
under  the  spur  of  an  overstrained  Saturday  night, 
for  reaction  is  sure  to  come,  and  the  reaction,  as 
you  have  already  confessed,  sometimes  begins 
before  you  have  got  through  your  very  important 
Sunday  evening  service.  If  you  are  to  have  true 
mastery  over  yourself,  and  get  the  maximum 
result  out  of  the  powers  God  has  given  you,  you 
must  reduce  your  moods  to  a  more  perfect  order. 
I  allow  that  something  may  be  said  in  excuse 
for  your  late  start.  Till  the  business  committees, 
which  come  in  the  early  part  of  the  week,  and 
the  outside  engagements,  which  perhaps  ought 
not  to  be  undertaken,  and  the  week-night  prayer- 
meeting,  which  practically  means  a  short  homily 
demanding  a  morning  in  its  preparation,  are 
over,  you  do  not  feel  yourself  free  to  come  to 
a  decision  about  your  Sunday  work.  I  confess 
that  I  myself  share  your  repugnance  to  the 
methods  of  some  worthy  men  who  map  out  a 
whole  year's  subjects  for  their  congregations  in 
the  course  of  their  summer  holiday.  I  have  not 
a  little  sympathy  with  the  view  held  by  those 
estimable   people   the  Quakers,  that  we   should 

N 


194  THE  CLERICAL  LIFE 

speak  under  direct  intimations  given  to  us  from 
above,  and  I  cannot  imagine  that  the  wise  and 
holy  Guide  of  the  Church  and  its  ministers  would 
crowd  the  brain  and  heart  of  any  man  with 
intimations  of  what  he  must  do  in  the  course 
of  a  twelvemonth's  ministry.  For  my  own  part, 
I  do  not  care  to  be  tied  up  by  having  subjects 
announced  beforehand  either  from  the  pulpit  or 
in  the  press.  It  gives  me  a  sense  of  uncomfort- 
able restraint,  and  I  can  never  be  sure  that  the 
subject  will  fit  in  with  the  special  thoughts  and 
feelings  which  may  be  dominating  me  at  the 
time.  It  is  sheer  wretchedness  to  have  to  preach 
on  one  subject  when  thought  and  interest  and 
sympathy  happen  to  be  rallying  round  some 
other.  You,  like  myself,  are  unable  to  keep  two 
or  three  subjects  under  consideration  at  the  same 
time,  for  it  is  inconsistent  with  concentration  of 
intense  thought  and  feeling  upon  any  one  of 
them.  You  want,  before  you  can  settle  your 
texts,  a  free  and  a  quiet  hour  of  thought ;  and 
when  the  organist  sends  mid-week  for  your 
hymns,  which  must  have  a  more  or  less  direct 
adaptation    to    the    texts,  his    messenger  often 


THE  CLERICAL  LIFE  195 

seems  like  an  emissary  of  Satan  come  to  buffet 
you.  The  fresher  a  subject  is  to  your  mind,  the 
greater  your  ease  in  preaching  it ;  and  perhaps 
the  best  thing  that  can  be  said  for  your  present 
method  is,  that  inasmuch  as  you  can  no  longer 
memorise  a  subject  after  the  method  of  your 
College  days,  the  fever  of  high-pressure  prepara- 
tion burns  a  subject  into  the  brain  and  heart, 
and  makes  it  easier  of  delivery  than  a  more 
deliberately  prepared  subject. 

The  question,  'What  shall  I  preach?  where- 
with shall  I  feed  this  people?'  often  haunts  you 
as  painfully  as  the  unbelieving  question  of  the 
over-anxious  business  man,  *  What  shall  we  eat, 
and  what  shall  we  drink,  and  wherewithal  shall 
we  be  clothed?'  It  is  your  practice  to  keep  a 
list  of  subjects  which  in  the  course  of  your 
devotional  reading  have  suggested  themselves 
as  profitable  topics  of  study,  and  picking  out 
the  topic  around  which  thoughts  have  begun  to 
crystallise,  or  perhaps,  fixing  upon  one  that  has 
more  recently  suggested  itself,  you  propose  for 
once  to  make  an  early  beginning.  At  the  first 
glance  you  seem  to  have  in  hand  a  subject  which 


196  THE  CLERICAL  LIFE 

admits  of  interesting  treatment,  and  one,  too,  of 
which  your  congregation  may  be  very  profitably 
reminded.  But  a  few  days  or  weeks  ago  there 
were  lights  upon  it  which  seem  to  have  vanished, 
or  emotions  were  quickened  by  it  which  will  not 
revisit  you,  however  eagerly  you  woo  them.  You 
cannot  see  your  way  into  the  subject.  The 
glamour  of  interest  is  gone.  It  does  not  leap 
up  like  some  men's  sermons  into  hot,  copious, 
inexhaustible  geyser  springs  all  at  once.  The 
ground  over  which  you  had  prospected  seems  to 
have  become  dry,  barren,  unpromising.  You 
hover  round  the  subject  for  two  or  three  days, 
and  nothing  in  the  way  of  a  sketch  has  suggested 
itself  which  it  is  worth  while  putting  on  paper. 
Rightly  or  wrongly,  you  then  begin  to  reproach 
yourself  with  an  enormous  waste  of  time,  and 
yet  you  are  posing  before  your  people  as  a  busy 
man.  You  are  going  to  fail,  and  the  patience  of 
your  people  will  be  tried,  and  what  little  reputa- 
tion you  have  lowered,  for  the  subject  will  not 
open  out,  and  your  first  view  of  it  is  proving  a 
mere  mirage.  You  jib  and  shy  like  a  nervous 
horse,  and  wish  you  had  chosen  some  other  topic. 


THE  CLERICAL  LIFE  197 

The  first  watch  of  the  Saturday  night  finds  you 
in  the  deepest  gloom,  and  turning  wistfully  to 
piles  of  old  papers,  and  wondering  whether  you 
cannot  trim  one  of  your  college  rockets  and  let 
it  off  again.  But  as  you  glance  at  the  gay  and 
highly  decorated  crudities  of  your  youth,  your 
heart  sickens  more  and  more,  and  you  rightly 
resolve  it  will  be  better  to  stammer  out  a  few 
sober  truisms  than  bring  yourself  to  that 
humiliating  pass.  You  groan  and  moan,  and 
invite  your  merry  little  wife  to  share  your 
forecasts  of  pulpit  tribulation.  Twelve  o'clock 
comes  on  apace,  and  you  let  down  your  literary 
ideal  of  what  a  sermon  should  be,  and  under 
the  weird  compulsion  of  midnight  hours,  put 
down  whatever  comes  first.  Like  the  Indian 
conjuror,  you  make  the  mango-tree  to  grow  in 
an  incredibly  short  time,  and  happily  your  tree 
has  upon  it  fruit  which  to  some  at  least  is 
refreshing.  The  subject  does  prove  interesting 
and  profitable,  your  tribulations  were  more  or 
less  visionary,  and  whilst  you  ran  a  risk  of  failure 
by  allowing  yourself  to  drift  to  the  very  last 
moment,  you  did  not  entirely  fail. 


198  THE  CLERICAL  LIFE 

Now  IS  It  not  possible  for  you,  even  though 
your  methods  are  hardening  into  habits,  to  get 
the  upper  hand  of  these  moods,  which  make  you 
so  unhappy,  and  to  all  appearance  waste  time 
which  might  be  devoted  to  profitable  reading? 
We  once  talked  together  about  that  fine  sermon 
of  Martineau's  on  *  The  Tides  of  the  Spirit,'  and 
agreed  that  the  work  in  which  the  highest  powers 
of  the  mind  are  to  take  part  cannot  be  done  by 
rule  of  thumb.  Our  noblest  thoughts  come  to 
us  unsought  and  at  intervals.  Perhaps  you  can 
do  a  little  of  the  rumination  which  must  neces- 
sarily precede  actual  sermonising  as  you  go  upon 
your  pastoral  rounds  or  take  country  walks.  If 
the  account  you  give  of  yourself  is  perfectly 
correct,  you  do  seem  to  fritter  away  time 
before  the  sermon-making  actually  begins,  and 
you  must  not  allow  even  sermon-making  to 
narrow  the  range  of  your  reading,  or  your  mind 
will  become  like  an  impoverished  and  infertile 
soil,  and  production  will  be  an  increasingly 
difficult  and  burdensome  task  for  you. 

Is  it  necessary  that  everything  you  say  should 
have  the  stamp  of  the  uncommon  and  the  superfine 


THE  CLERICAL  LIFE  199 

upon  it  ?  You  have  marked  literary  tastes  which 
you  have  diligently  cultivated,  but  those  tastes 
are  apt  to  become  a  temptation  to  you.  I  am 
sure  you  are  perfectly  sincere  in  your  faith,  and 
always  preach  from  the  depth  of  genuine  con- 
viction, and  I  entirely  sympathise  with  you  in 
your  desire  to  keep  out  of  old  ruts.  But  it  seems 
to  me  that  you  are  in  danger  of  finding  subjects 
attractive  because  of  the  speculations  to  which 
they  allure,  or  the  literary  form  with  which  it  is 
possible  to  clothe  them,  and  of  looking  upon 
some  subjects  as  vapid  if  they  must  needs  be 
treated  upon  old  lines,  however  stern  and  solemn 
the  facts  with  which  they  deal.  Remember, 
my  dear  fellow,  that  there  is  such  a  thing  as 
intellectual  selfishness,  and  that  it  is  quite 
possible  for  a  man  to  become  a  pulpit  epicure. 
Cannot  you  feel  an  interest  in  some  phases  of 
the  truth  because  of  their  practical  fitness  to 
those  whom  you  address,  whether  those  phases 
of  the  truth  lend  themselves  to  philosophical, 
parabolic,  or  picturesque  treatment  or  not? 
Your  power  of  dealing  with  abstruse  forms  of 
truth  is  invaluable,  but  it  must  be  compensated 


200  THE  CLERICAL  LIFE 

by  practical  sympathy  with  the  needs  of  the 
common  people.  Perhaps  this  weekly  ordeal 
of  dulness,  disheartenment,  heart-sickness,  pes- 
simism, followed  by  a  rush  of  preparation  and 
delivery  like  that  of  the  scorcher  cyclist  on  the 
race  track,  is  due  in  part  to  intellectual  fastidi- 
ousness which  must  be  cured  by  closer  contact 
with  all  classes  of  life  in  your  congregation. 
When  God  means  you  to  preach  only  to  the 
members  of  the  Athenaeum  Club,  He  will  give 
the  shareholders  a  dividend  which  will  allow 
them  to  engage  a  chaplain. 

The  languor  and  despondency  which  some- 
times trouble  you  during  the  construction  of  a 
sermon  may  arise  in  part  from  the  sense  you 
have  of  the  inadequacy  of  human  language  and 
of  all  poor  earthly  metaphor  to  limn  the  mere 
outlines  of  heavenly  things.  You  have  gifts 
which  do  not  often  go  together  —  imagination, 
the  power  of  abstract  thought,  and  a  deep  fund 
of  spiritual  emotion  —  and  you  sometimes  see 
the  things  of  God  with  very  little  apparent  help 
from  speech.  I  think  I  have  heard  you  say 
more  than  once  that  you  could  disprove  out  of 


THE  CLERICAL  LIFE  201 

many  of  your  own  intellectual  experiences  the 
dictum  of  Max  Muller,  that  language  came 
before  thought,  and  that  we  cannot  think  without 
language.  High  thoughts  very  often  come  to 
you  before  language,  and  when  you  have  to  put 
them  down  in  black  and  white  it  is  very  much 
like  trying  to  put  a  farmer's  rough  driving-coat 
round  the  form  of  an  angel.  When  you  are 
sickened  by  feeling  the  paucity  and  limitation 
of  human  language,  read  a  little  of  something 
at  once  rare  and  simple  in  phrase  by  way  of 
correcting  this  pessimism,  and  be  careful  to 
choose  something  as  far  away  as  possible  from 
the  line  of  your  ordinary  reading.  It  will  revive 
your  faith  in  the  possibilities  of  expression,  and 
make  you  feel  in  a  moment  they  are  larger  than 
you  had  thought.  And  keep  the  instrument  in 
perpetual  tune.  The  mind  must  rest  now  and 
again.  Your  hearers  will  be  the  better  through 
the  temperate  recreation  you  allow  yourself,  and 
the  little  excursions  into  social  life  you  make 
now  and  again.  But  watch  over  yourself,  and 
keep  from  settling  down,  even  for  a  few  days 
only,  into  the  groove  of  an  unproductive  mood. 


202  THE  CLERICAL  LIFE 

If  your  thoughts  will  not  take  wing,  turn  to  some 
stimulating  book  for  an  hour,  but  a  book  of  such 
a  quality  that  you  cannot  take  in  too  much  at 
a  time.  Never  gorge  yourself  like  a  literary  Red 
Indian.  Read  just  enough  of  a  poet  to  warm 
your  sensibilities  out  of  their  torpor.  And  if 
possible,  make  it  a  rule  to  break  into  your  subject 
as  soon  as  possible.  It  is  true  you  may  not  be 
breaking  into  it  at  the  right  point,  but  it  will  be 
a  saving  of  time  if  in  the  end  even  you  have 
entirely  to  rearrange  it.  It  is  an  advantage  to 
get  into  a  subject  whether  you  get  at  it  by  the 
main  gateway  or  not,  for  you  will  be  able  to 
reach  the  centre  in  due  time  by  whatever  path- 
way you  advance.  But  these,  after  all,  are 
counsels  of  minor  importance,  and  perhaps 
scarcely  need  to  be  written. 

I  am  an  old  friend,  and  will  use  the  privilege 
of  my  position  and  speak  plainly.  Let  me  ask 
you  to  probe  your  own  motives  as  deeply  as 
possible,  which  I  am  sure  are  mainly  right. 
Do  not  these  pessimistic  and  procrastinating 
humours,  which  are  fast  settling  down  into  a 
chronic  malady,  imply  a  more  or  less  defective 


THE  CLERICAL  LIFE  203 

consecration  to  God  and  your  work?  Some 
faint  strain  of  ambition  may  enter  into  the 
conception  of  your  task,  and  debar  you  from 
counting  to  the  fullest  possible  extent  upon 
Divine  help.  You  have  come  to  think  that  the 
popularity  you  have  achieved  with  the  thinking 
and  reading  sections  of  your  congregation  is  an 
essential  constituent  of  your  usefulness,  and  are 
a  little  fearful  lest  the  ebb-tide  should  set  in. 
Let  God  give  or  withhold  public  favour  as  He 
may  decree,  but  it  is  a  dangerous  thing  for  you 
to  aim,  in  however  subordinate  degree,  at  keeping 
it.  Be  anxious  only  about  your  usefulness,  and 
God  will  take  care  of  your  popularity,  if  He 
thinks  it  good  for  you  and  His  work  that  it 
should  still  attend  your  ministrations.  You  are 
sometimes  perplexed  by  this  lower  aim  which 
asserts  itself  in  your  subconsciousness.  I  know 
your  supreme  aim  is  to  teach  the  truth  and 
commend  yourself  to  God ;  but  this  subordinate 
aim  seems  to  intrude  itself  into  your  study  like 
Poe's  Raven,  and  the  desire  to  please  God  on 
the  one  hand,  and  be  acceptable  to  the  choicest 
spirits  of  your  congregation  on  the  other,  exerts 


204  THE  CLERICAL  LIFE 

quite  a  paralysing  influence  upon  your  pro- 
ductive faculties.  Think  of  yourself  as  Christ's 
bond-slave,  as  did  St.  Paul,  and  remember  that  to 
be  a  bond-slave  is  not  only  to  be  more  absolutely 
subject  to  the  will  of  your  master  in  the  methods 
of  your  work  than  is  the  hired  labourer,  but  is 
also  to  have  a  claim  upon  his  help  and  support 
not  possessed  by  the  hired  labourer,  who  only 
serves  within  prescribed  lines. 

You  once  knew  yourself  to  be  Divinely  called 
to  the  ministry  of  the  Word,  although  the  routine 
of  the  last  ten  years  has  sometimes  brought  you 
almost  to  the  verge  of  perfunctory  automatism. 
And  you  feel  this  fact  still  standing  as  a  solid 
thing  in  the  background  of  your  pessimistic 
vapourings  and  trepidations,  although  the 
atmosphere  of  hurry  in  which  you  live  for 
much  of  the  week  prevents  you  from  being 
adequately  impressed  by  it.  When  you  sit 
down  to  your  next  sermon,  remember  the 
subject  has  been  prayerfully  and  conscientiously 
chosen,  and  do  not  hark  back  from  it  in  some 
dyspeptic  or  hysterical  mood  which  is  unworthy 
of  you.     Have  just  as  much  faith  in  the  provi- 


THE  CLERICAL  LIFE  205 

dential  suitability  of  your  subject  when  you 
begin,  and  the  beginning  seems  unpromising, 
as  when  you  came  down  the  pulpit  steps  last 
Sunday  morning,  thanking  God  that  the  thing 
had  turned  out  so  much  better  than  you  expected. 
Try  and  have  a  little  faith  during  the  days  of 
preparation  as  well  as  in  the  act  of  delivery. 
Never  allow  yourself  to  be  mastered  by  the 
temptation  that  it  will  be  better  to  turn  to 
something  else,  or  that  the  subject  may  prove 
so  tame  and  colourless  that  you  will  be  compelled 
to  show  contempt  for  your  own  offspring  by 
presenting  it  to  the  congregation  in  a  humdrum, 
passionless,  semi-apologetic  tone.  True,  you 
may  not  have  those  gifts  of  voice  and  action, 
and  shall  I  add  of  superficiality,  which  enable 
some  fortunate  men  to  turn  platitudes  into 
entrancing  music ;  but  there  is  no  reason  why 
you  should  allow  yourself  to  drift  into  the  style 
of  the  politician  who  is  said  to  have  yawned  in 
the  middle  of  one  of  his  speeches,  and  have  said 
afterwards  to  some  friends  who  reminded  him 
of  the  lapse,  But  was  it  not  frightfully  dull? 
Do  not  let  these  vapours  visit  you  either  in  the 


2o6  THE  CLERICAL  LIFE 

study  or  the  pulpit.  If  they  come  into  the  study, 
you  will  find  that  they  will  want  to  follow  you 
to  church  as  persistently  as  the  shepherd's  collie. 
It  is  true  your  tastes  are  fastidious  and  exacting, 
but  you  must  be  as  lenient  to  yourself  as  to  your 
brother  minister's  criticism,  of  whose  pulpit  efforts 
I  am  glad  to  find  you  never  fail  to  temper  with 
magnanimous  kindness.  Your  sermon  now  and 
again  may  not  count  for  much  as  a  study  in 
theology  or  an  effort  in  literature,  but  as  a 
practical  counsel  to  the  living  men  and  women 
for  whose  spiritual  welfare  you  are  set  to  care 
it  may  be  of  a  value  that  can  only  be  told  in  the 
arithmetic  of  the  judgment  day.  If  some  mysteri- 
ous hand  seems  to  put  to  sleep  for  a  while  those 
faculties  of  the  mind  which  make  you  coruscate, 
believe  that  your  Master  for  once  in  a  way  has 
something  better  for  you  to  do  than  to  be 
brilliant.  Never  be  solicitous  about  your 
effectiveness  in  the  intellectual  sense.  The  art 
of  captivating  the  men  and  women  to  whose 
intelligence  and  culture  you  perhaps  pay  rather 
too  much  homage  for  your  own  comfort,  will 
be  continued  to  you  if  it  will  contribute  to  your 


THE  CLERICAL  LIFE  207 

all-round  usefulness.  Never  forget  *the  Lord 
has  much  people '  in  sections  of  the  community 
which  lack  appreciation  of  those  purely  in- 
tellectual qualities  about  which  you  are  so 
anxious  in  the  throes  and  agonies  of  the  week- 
end. 

I  am  sure  you  will  forgive  the  freedom  of  my 
letter,  which  perhaps  almost  verges  on  the  in- 
quisitorial ;  and  if  you  can  correct  the  malady 
about  which  I  have  been  writing,  you  will  be  a 
happier  and  a  more  effective  man,  and  v/ill  thank 
me  for  my  plain  speaking  in  after  years. 

With  every  good  wish  for  you  in  your  work, 
I  am,  yours  affectionately,  Theta. 


XVII 

To  a  Minister  who  objects  to  '  Wandering ' 
in  August 


To  A  Minister  who  objects  to 

'Wandering'  in  August 

Dear  Mr.  Armitage, — Last  Sunday  evening, 
for  the  second  time  since  I  joined  your  congrega- 
tion, you  gave  out  as  your  text,  *  As  a  bird  that 
wandereth  from  her  nest,  so  is  the  man  that 
wandereth  from  his  place.'  You  were  to  start  on 
Monday  morning  for  a  six  weeks'  holiday  in 
Norway.  I  was  to  spend  August  at  my  desk  in 
Moorgate  Street.  Past  experience  had  made 
me  distrustful  of  the  *  supplies  '  you  were  likely  to 
provide  during  your  absence,  and  I  had  secretly 
resolved  to  hear  a  few  of  the  eminent  strangers 
who  are  at  present  occupying  our  London  pulpits. 
But  the  steady  direction  of  your  eyes  towards 
my  pew,  coupled  with  sundry  hints  I  have  lately 
received  from  you,  made  me  certain  that  I  was 
the  *  wandering  bird '  you  were  anxious  to  retain 
in  the  nest. 


212  THE  CLERICAL  LIFE 

As  one  of  your  young  men,  I  am  naturally 
proud  of  your  growing  reputation.  I  seldom 
turn  over  the  pages  of  a  religious  newspaper 
without  finding  some  mention  of  your  name.  It 
is  even  whispered  that  you  send  paragraphs 
about  our  church  and  its  pastor  to  most  of  the 
daily  and  weekly  journals.  Far  be  it  from  me  to 
find  fault  with  you  for  this.  To  my  mind  it  is 
part  of  a  very  wise  and  skilful  policy.  How  are 
we  to  bring  our  work  before  the  notice  of  the 
Christian  public  if  our  pastor  yields  to  a  foolish 
and  ill-advised  modesty  with  regard  to  himself? 
Such  a  paragraph  as  the  following,  which  I  cut  out 
of  a  paper  this  week,  may  not  at  first  sight  appear 
to  be  of  absorbing  national  interest :  '  The  Rev.  R. 
Hamilton  Armitage  preached  on  Sunday  morning 
to  a  crowded  congregation  from  Micah  iv.  i.  In 
the  evening  Mr.  Armitage  gave  an  address  to 
young  men  from  i  Tim.  iv.  8.'  I  agree  with  you, 
however,  that  every  reader  of  this  paragraph  will 
want  to  know  what  you  said  on  Micah  iv.  i  and 
on  I  Tim.  iv.  8,  and  will  look  out  with  eager 
interest  for  any  further  mention  of  your  name. 
Some  of  your  brethren  have  accused  you  of  self- 


THE  CLERICAL  LIFE  213 

advertisement,  but  if  your  people  appreciate  these 
paragraphs  you  can  afford  to  be  indifferent  to 
envious  outsiders.  I  feel  a  new  pride  in  my 
Church,  my  minister,  and  even  my  suburb,  when 
I  read  that  '  The  Rev.  R.  Hamilton  Armitage,  in 
his  eloquent  sermon  on  "  Charity,"  dwelt  with 
convincing  force  on  the  thought  that  kind  hearts 
are  more  than  coronets.'  At  the  same  time,  I 
cannot  accuse  myself  of  '  treacherous  disloyalty ' 
because  during  these  few  autumn  weeks  I  venture 
now  and  then  to  wander.  'During  my  absence 
on  a  much-needed  holiday,'  you  remarked  on 
Sunday,  *  I  shall  expect  all  the  members  who 
remain  in  London  to  be  regular  in  their  attend- 
ance at  public  worship  in  this  place.  I  was 
grieved  to  learn  on  my  return  last  year  that  there 
had  been  a  sad  falling-off  in  numbers  and  in  con- 
tributions. The  young  men  especially  had  been 
conspicuous  by  their  absence.  To  all  those  who 
neglect  their  own  sanctuary  and  roam  idly  abroad 
to  other  places,  the  solemn  warning  of  the  text 
applies,  "  As  a  bird  that  wandereth  from  her  nest, 
so  is  the  man  that  wandereth  from  his  place/'  * 
But   what   if  the   bird    never   wandered  from 


214  THE  CLERICAL  LIFE 

its  nest  ?  Would  its  life  be  fuller,  richer,  stronger 
because  it  brooded  continually  within  those 
narrow  walls  ?  And  has  not  the  bird  the  right  to 
ask  that  its  nest  shall  not  be  made  too  uncomfort- 
able to  hold  it  ?  This  brings  me  to  the  chief 
remonstrance  of  my  letter,  which  I  offer  with  the 
utmost  humility  and  deference.  Why  are  the 
'supplies '  you  provide  for  us  in  August,  as  a  rule, 
such  wretched  failures  ? 

One  of  your  young  men  has  a  theory  that 
you  search  the  length  and  breadth  of  England 
for  the  worst  preachers  our  denomination  can 
produce.  You  have  a  preference  for  very  old 
men  whose  powers  of  utterance  are  failing.  Last 
summer  not  one  of  our  holiday  supplies  was  under 
seventy.  We  had  a  sermon  on  *  The  Evils  of  the 
Higher  Criticism,*  and  another  on  '  The  probable 
course  of  the  Ark  before  and  after  its  arrival  on 
Mount  Ararat'  Deacon  Mulgrave,  who  makes  a 
boast  that  he  has  not  slept  out  of  his  own  house 
for  twenty-eight  years,  nor  worshipped  in  any 
'strange  sanctuary'  (your  favourite  phrase) 
during  the  whole  of  that  time,  was  intensely 
interested  in  both  of  these  sermons,  but  especially 


THE  CLERICAL  LIFE  215 

the  latter,  as  he  said  it  opened  up  a  new  world, 
and  made  one  feel  like  a  friend  and  companion 
of  Noah.  There  are  plenty  of  Deacon  Mulgraves 
in  our  congregation,  and  you  might  surely  allow 
the  rest  of  us  a  little  freedom.  After  all,  we 
young  men  pay  a  high  compliment  to  your 
preaching  by  refusing  to  listen  to  any  one  else  in 
your  pulpit.  I  can  quite  understand  that  you 
like  strangers  to  see  a  crowded  area  and  galleries, 
even  at  this  holiday  season,  a  visible  sign  of  the 
invisible  energy  which  binds  us  together.  But  you 
need  not  be'  anxious  on  the  score  of  personal 
reputation.  There  were  two  rows  in  the  gallery 
vacant  on  the  third  Sunday  of  last  August,  and 
Mr.  Mulgrave  went  into  the  vestry  to  make  a 
formal  apology.  *  It  has  never  happened  before,' 
he  said.  '  A  vacant  seat  is  unknown  in  our 
church.  We  have  a  room  downstairs  full  of  chairs 
and  benches  for  placing  in  the  aisles,  and  when 
Mr.  Armitage  is  at  home  every  chair  and  every 
bench  is  needed.  Hundreds  are  turned  away 
during  the  winter.  It  is  only  a  few  of  the  young 
men  who  like  to  wander  during  August.' 

So,  you   see,  our   empty   seats  increase  your 


2i6  THE  CLERICAL  LIFE 

honour  and  prestige,  and  the  poor  old  *  supply' 
wonders  why  he  has  never,  in  his  long  ministry, 
been  able  to  draw  together  more  than  seventy 
hearers.  Why  is  it,  I  wonder,  that  you  give  us 
such  inferior  preachers  for  the  holidays  ?  One  of 
the  older  members  told  me  lately  that  you 
engaged,  some  ten  years  ago,  a  very  distin- 
guished man  who  is  now  the  principal  of  one 
of  our  colleges.  The  congregation  were  enrap- 
tured, and  for  a  whole  week  nothing  was  heard 
but  comparisons  between  his  style  and  your  own. 
'  If  we  could  get  a  man  like  that,'  said  the 
grumblers ;  and  even  your  faithful  friends  wished 
you  could  take  a  lesson  from  the  stranger.  You 
were  amazed  on  your  return  at  the  effusive  grati- 
tude with  which  every  one  spoke  of  Dr.  S/s 
sermons.  He  has  never  been  asked  back  to  our 
chapel.  Yet  surely  you,  who  have  nothing  to 
fear  from  a  rival,  need  not  have  taken  fright 
so  hastily. 

It  is  a  pity,  I  think,  that  you  are  so  hard  on 
American  preachers.  *  If  you  must  wander  from 
the  nest,'  you  said,  *  at  least  don't  let  the  love  of 
mere  sensation  take  you  to  popular  orators  from 


THE  CLERICAL  LIFE  217 

the  other  side  of  the  Atlantic.  American  preach- 
ing is  shallow,  trivial,  pretentious,  and  unedifying/ 
After  this  I  decided  to  hear  a  few  of  the  eminent 
Americans  who  are  in  London  during  the  summer, 
and  I  only  wish  you  had  secured  an  American  in- 
stead of  one  of  our  usual  group  of  fossils.  To  a 
businessman  like  myself  there  is  something  emin- 
ently welcome  in  the  plain  and  business-like  tone 
of  those  American  preachers.  *  Some  of  my 
younger  hearers,'  said  a  noted  D.D.  from  New 
York  whom  I  heard  the  other  day,  *  have  been,  no 
doubt,  on  the  switchback  railway,  and  will  appre- 
ciate the  application  I  propose  to  make  from  its 
workings  to  this  part  of  my  subject.'  The  awe- 
struck and  reverent  interest  with  which  American 
preachers  refer  to  material  wealth  and  rank  is 
also  very  gratifying  to  a  City  man.  Even  our 
humdrum  old  Deacon  Mulgrave  would  prick  up 
his  ears  if  his  minister,  leaning  over  the  pulpit, 
announced  with  earnest  emphasis,  '  I  heard  an 
anecdote  lately,  dear  brethren,  about  a  great 
English  duke,  a  man  of  vast  wealth  and  con- 
sequence, perhaps  the  richest  of  all  Queen 
Victoria's   subjects.'     London  audiences  like  to 


2i8  THE  CLERICAL  LIFE 

hear  Americans  during  the  summer.  For  some 
of  us  it  is  the  next  best  thing  to  crossing  the 
Atlantic.  Engage  Dr.  Hiram  Winnipeg  of 
Chicago,  and  I  guarantee  we  shall  be  satisfied  to 
remain. 

If,  on  the  other  hand,  you  think  it  right  to  give 
village  pastors  an  opportunity  of  preaching  in 
London  during  the  summer,  do  not  grumble  too 
much  if  we  younger  folk  slip  off.  Strangers  are 
sure,  at  this  season,  to  be  found  in  sufficient  num- 
bers to  fill  our  vacant  places.  Even  in  the  great 
churches  of  London  the  congregations  during 
August  are  largely  corhposed  of  visitors ;  and 
although  the  minister  may  himself  be  at  home,  a 
certain  freedom  is  required  during  these  summer 
months.  We  may  be  chained  to  the  desk  on 
week-days,  but  we  give  up  our  evenings  to  the 
river  or  to  games  with  twice  the  enthusiasm  of 
any  other  period  of  the  year.  We  are  at  work 
while  the  world  is  on  holiday,  and  so  we  try  on 
week-day  and  Sunday  alike  to  find  as  much 
holiday  as  possible  in  our  work.  The  bird  is  for- 
bidden to  fly  into  the  free  fields  of  heaven  ;  why 
should  you  forbid  it  to  flutter  a  few  feet  from  the 


THE  CLERICAL  LIFE  219 

nest?  After  all,  the  mind  needs  freshening — 
never  more  than  in  a  London  August.  If  the 
great  preachers  are  content  to  see  a  scattering, 
and  never  dream  of  asking  whether  the  Jenkinses 
are  really  in  the  country,  or  if  they  have  gone 
to  hear  the  eloquent  American  over  the  way,  why 
need  you  be  so  stringent  ? 

Depend  upon  it,  we  shall  welcome  you  back 
none  the  less  cordially  because  we,  like  you,  have 
wandered.  The  familiar  walls  will  be  more  home- 
like because  we  have  worshipped  for  a  time  with 
strangers.  We  shall  open  the  old  hymn-books 
with  a  sigh  of  relief,  because  we  have  handled 
others  marked  '  For  Visitors  Only.'  The 
great  man  from  Chicago  is  on  his  homeward 
voyage,  and  most  cheerfully  we  have  sped  the 
parting  guest.  The  bird  that  wanders  farthest 
flies  back  to  its  home. — Yours  very  truly, 

X. 


XVIII 

To  a  Brother  smarting  under  a  Bad  Time 


To  A  Brother  smarting  under  a 
Bad  Time 

My  dear  Sir, — When  I  met  you  in  the  train 
yesterday,  I  was  sorry  to  find  you  so  wofully 
depressed  about  the  specially  bad  time  you  seem 
to  have  had  in  your  pulpit  last  Sunday.  Your 
failure  is  evidently  worrying  you,  and  a  few  lines 
from  an  old  hand  may  prove  not  altogether 
unacceptable.  I  have  suffered  too  often  and  too 
deeply  from  the  same  cause  to  be  now  indifferent 
to  your  perplexity  and  wretchedness.  The  times 
are  very  rare  indeed  in  which  the  preacher  is 
altogether  satisfied  with  his  deliverance ;  usually 
he  is  conscious  of  falling  sadly  below  his  ideal ; 
but  ever  and  anon  the  cleverest  and  most  success- 
ful pulpit  master  is  conscious  of  miserable  failure. 
The  preacher's  distress  on  these  occasions  may 
be  little  more  than  a  matter  of  wounded  vanity, 
but  I  know  you  well  enough  to  be  sure  that  more 

223 


224  THE  CLERICAL  LIFE 

than  personal  considerations  enter  into  your 
grief.  It  is  true  that  to  accentuate  your  chagrin 
the  distinguished  Dr.  Twigem  was  present  in 
your  congregation  to  witness  your  confusion,  and 
you  will  find  the  famous  critic  always  does  drop 
in  on  these  melancholy  occasions,  yet  I  am 
persuaded  that  no  mere  personal  considerations 
constitute  the  sting  of  this  unlucky  incident  in 
your  ministerial  life.  It  is  the  general  feeling  of 
incompetence  that  these  occasions  generate ;  the 
loss  of  confidence  in  ourselves  that  they  involve ; 
the  sense  of  a  fine  opportunity  wasted  ;  the  belief 
that  through  our  awkwardness  and  blundering 
we  have  lost  caste  in  the  eyes  of  our  people,  and 
can  no  longer  address  them  with  the  same  con- 
fidence,— these  are  the  more  worthy  and  serious 
sources  of  a  faithful  preacher's  humiliation. 
The  sorrow  that  springs  out  of  a  thoroughly 
bad  time  is  often  almost  tragically  keen,  and  it 
need  not  be  altogether  ignoble. 

Let  me  remind  you  that  strange  and  un- 
accountable failure  is  common  to  all  intellectual 
workers.  Tennyson  showed  more  than  once  that 
the  poet    is   not    always   in   his   singing   robes. 


THE  CLERICAL  LIFE  225 

Leech  confessed  that  sometimes  his  pencil  was 
on  strike,  that  it  was  a  dangerous  anarchist,  and 
that  he  proposed  to  call  out  the  military.  The 
lips  of  the  orator  are  not  always  touched  with 
fire.  Napoleon  said  of  Waterloo :  '  It  was  a 
day  of  fatalities,'  and  all  intellectual  agents 
are  familiar  with  such  days.  Regarded  simply 
as  a  brain-worker,  the  preacher  must  expect 
to  share  in  these  eclipses  and  collapses.  There 
are  days  in  which  we  are  not  ourselves,  in 
which  we  are  guilty  of  inexplicable  lapses 
of  memory,  obvious  inconsequence  in  reason- 
ing, absurd  confusion  of  metaphor ;  we  cannot 
quote  correctly  the  familiar  verses,  we  get 
hold  of  everything  at  the  wrong  end,  or  by  the 
wrong  handle.  Some  failures  admit  of  ready 
explanation,  they  are  the  obvious  result  of  hurry, 
illness,  disturbance,  but  the  obscure  cause  of 
many  a  pulpit  muddle  and  martyrdom  must 
be  sought  in  this  curious  mental  inaction  and 
infelicity. 

You  will  remember  also  that  the  more  free  a 
man's  style  of  working  is,  the  more  liable  is  he  to 
these    occasional    embarrassments.      The    more 

P 


226  THE  CLERICAL  LIFE 

mechanical  the  artist's  method,  the  less  likely  is 
he  to  sudden,  ignominious  failure.  Now  you 
have  adopted  the  extemporaneous  style  of 
preaching,  and  I  am  glad  that  you  have  ;  on  the 
whole  I  believe  it  to  be  the  far  better  course,  but 
you  must  be  prepared  to  pay  the  penalty  of  such 
a  style.  The  preacher  who  elects  to  read  his 
sermons  knows  comparatively  little  of  bad  times, 
as,  indeed,  he  knows  comparatively  little  of  times 
of  extraordinary  inspiration  and  triumph :  the 
extempore  preacher  knows  both.  Victor  Hugo 
says  :  '  An  ass  with  his  chart  is  better  off  than  a 
wizard  with  his  oracle,'  and  all  extemporaneous 
orators  have  times  when  they  prove  the  truth  of 
this  aphorism  to  the  sorrow  of  their  soul.  Know- 
ing on  the  one  hand  the  advantage  and  pleasure 
of  free,  spontaneous  speech,  you  must  not,  on  the 
other  hand,  shirk  the  penalty  of  your  choice  in 
occasional  failure  and  humiliation.  When  you 
trust  to  your  wings  you  cease  to  stand  upon  your 
feet. 

The  intellectual  part  of  the  failure,  however,  is 
often  with  the  preacher  the  least  part  of  the 
bitter  experience.     The  more  grievous  defect  in 


THE  CLERICAL  LIFE  227 

the  miscarriage  is  the  lack  of  spiritual  reality  and 
power.  The  preacher  has  no  vivid  sympathy 
with  what  he  is  talking  about ;  the  words  come 
constrainedly  aud  coldly,  but  the  truth  does  not 
move  his  soul,  light  his  eye,  tremble  on  his  lip. 
There  is  spiritual  deadness  as  well  as  mental  con- 
striction, and  the  hour  that  ought  to  be  so  rich 
and  blessed  is  barren  and  disappointing.  How 
far  your  calamity  of  Sunday  evening  was  an 
intellectual  or  a  spiritual  limitation,  or  both,  no 
one  knows  so  well  as  yourself. 

So  far  as  you  are  personally  concerned,  this 
pulpit  paralysis  has  its  special  lessons  which  you 
must  not  disregard.  Not  rarely  our  bad  times 
are  the  consequences  of  inadequate  preparation. 
My  dear  friend,  I  am  more  and  more  shocked  at 
the  little  attention  which  some  give  to  pulpit 
fitness.  Other  intellectual  workers  bestow  infinite 
pains  that  they  may  attain  perfection  in  their 
particular  vocation,  whilst  the  preacher  too  often 
presumes  on  the  slenderest  special  effort ;  and  all 
the  time  no  branch  of  art  calls  for  more  intense 
endeavour  than  the  sermon  does.  James  Smetham 
says   of  Leslie :    '  On    the   floor   of    one  of  his 


228  THE  CLERICAL  LIFE 

pictures  there  are  about  half  a  dozen  small 
flowers  scattered.  It  is  recorded  that  for  these 
flowers  there  are  sheets  on  sheets  of  studies  in 
water-colours  of  flowers  from  nature.'  Yet  some 
of  our  brethren  think  to  dash  off"  a  sermon  in  the 
most  light-hearted  fashion.  Every  work  of 
merit  represents  concentration  ;  every  true 
worker  is  a  passionate  worker ;  and  men  will 
hardly  continue  to  do  things  badly  if  their  heart 
is  in  the  doing  of  them.  Nothing  should  recon- 
cile a  minister  to  superficial  and  hasty  prepara- 
tion for  the  desk,  and  if  failure  ever  follow  on 
such  preparation  it  should  prove  a  caution.  Then 
if  the  preacher  has  done  his  best  to  prepare  the 
discourse,  he  has  not  always  the  consciousness 
that  he  has  done  his  best  to  prepare  himself;  he 
has  wrought  his  best  in  the  study,  but  has  not 
been  living  at  his  best.  The  actor  entering  on 
the  stage  has  no  special  reason  to  look  into  his 
soul ;  the  state  of  the  imagination,  not  of  the 
conscience,  is  the  primal  solicitude  of  the  painter ; 
the  musician  taking  up  the  score  is  concerned 
only  about  his  voice ;  but  the  moral  and  spiritual 
elements  in  his  own  heart  and  life  are  of  tran- 


THE  CLERICAL  LIFE  229 

scendent  interest  to  the  preacher  whenever  he 
stands  forth  to  address  his  people.  The  best 
work  of  the  pulpit  can  be  done  only  whilst  a 
spiritual  and  divine  enthusiasm  agitates  the 
preacher's  own  soul.  Our  failures  ought  to  cut  us 
to  the  quick  when  we  have  neglected  brain  or  heart. 
I  would  not,  you  know,  speak  with  levity  of  those 
affecting  moments  when  we  give  the  final  touches 
to  our  personal  appearance  before  mounting  the 
pulpit,  the  coaxing  of  the  tie,  the  disposition  of 
the  locks,  the  adjustment  of  the  gown,  the  fare- 
well pathetic  glance  at  ourselves  in  the  vestry 
looking-glass — these  are  delicate  things  only  to 
be  witnessed  by  a  deacon's  eye  ;  but  if  such 
trimmings  constitute  the  main  part  of  our  pulpit 
preparation,  the  sooner  we  break  down  finally  the 
better  for  all  concerned.  I  know  you  are  a  good 
and  diligent  fellow,  but  we  all  need  to  watch 
against  spells  of  sloth,  and  to  preach  to  ourselves 
more  faithfully  than  we  preach  to  anybody  else. 
In  case  our  heart  does  not  condemn  us,  either 
for  intellectual  or  moral  default,  then  we  may 
take  our  bad  times  with  graceful  resignation. 
Our   moods   of    humiliation   are   not   our    most 


23©  THE  CLERICAL  LIFE 

dangerous  moods.  The  days  of  brilliant  triumph 
are  the  days  when  our  feet  are  set  in  slippery 
places.  How  beautifully  you  cheered  your 
deacon  the  other  day  when  he  made  that  bad 
debt ;  administer  similar  consolation  to  yourself, 
smarting  under  a  bad  time.  This  is  the  discipline 
that  persuades  us  what  we  are ;  which  afresh 
teaches  us  humility  and  dependence ;  which 
illustrates  once  more  the  commonplace  that  we 
have  this  treasure  in  earthen  vessels,  that  the 
excellency  of  the  power  may  be  of  God  and  not 
of  us. 

Our  congregations  are  less  affected  by  some  of 
these  bad  times  than  we  suppose.  We  are 
ashamed  to  meet  our  people  on  Monday  morn- 
ing, we  would  turn  a  corner  to  miss  them,  we  are 
afraid  that  they  will  learn  to  despise  us.  But 
much  of  this  is  a  mistake.  A  stranger  like  Dr. 
Twigem,  dropping  rarely  into  our  church,  might 
easily  put  us  too  low  or  too  high,  but  our  own 
people  know  our  best  and  our  worst,  and,  on  the 
whole,  judge  us  fairly.  They  know  the  average, 
and  their  estimate  of  us  is  not  greatly  affected 
by     a     specially     glorious     or     inglorious    day. 


THE  CLERICAL  LIFE  231 

Nay,  putting  aside  all  cynicism,  is  it  not  a  fact 
that  all  of  us  are  estimated  rather  by  our  best 
than  by  our  worst  ?  The  great  masters  are 
remembered  by  their  most  splendid  achievements, 
only  antiquaries  recall  their  failures;  cricketers 
are  known  by  their  big  scores,  authors  by  their 
*  hits,'  painters  by  the  pictures  which  were  railed 
round  to  keep  off  the  crowd  at  the  Academy 
exhibition.  Orators  are  immortal  by  a  single 
speech  if  it  only  were  of  signal  excellence.  And, 
depend  upon  it,  my  young  friend,  the  preacher 
shares  in  this  generosity  of  the  public  judgment. 
A  congregation  familiar  with  a  minister's  earnest 
words  and  works  will  not  forsake  him  because 
occasionally  he  falls  below  himself  Our  people 
simply  smile  whilst  we  are  foolishly  sick  at  heart. 
It  is  often  easy  to  exaggerate  the  significance 
of  our  bad  times.  They  will  not  exactly  arrest 
the  progress  of  Christ's  kingdom  in  the  world. 
Contemptible  speech '  very  early  wrought 
marvellous  things  in  the  Christian  Church,  and  it 
has  vindicated  itself  a  thousand  times  since  then. 
It  is  wonderful  how  many  failures  on  the  part  of 
its  advocates  the  Gospel  has  survived.     He  who 


232  THE  CLERICAL  LIFE 

works  with  poor  human  instruments  does  not  see 
such  a  great  gulf  between  our  best  and  worst  as 
we  see.  He  who  can  use  us  at  all  can  use  our 
blunders  and  confusions.  It  is  a  failure  indeed  in 
which  no  true  seed  is  sown  ;  in  which  no  helpful 
words  are  spoken.  Andrew  Bonar  writes  to  Mr. 
Milne  of  Perth :  '  Only  get  above  the  clouds, 
brother.  We  must  think  only  of  how  the  Lord 
may  be  glorified.  .  .  Never  mind  vigour  or  want 
of  vigour,  comfort  or  want  of  comfort,  in  our 
preaching  and  ministry.  All  we  have  to  do  is  to 
do  our  best  as  we  get  strength  at  the  time,  and, 
as  Robert  M'Cheyne  used  to  say,  "  The  Lord  can 
show  us  how  to  catch  fish  with  a  broken  net." 
"  Be  of  good  cheer."  Our  works  do  not  save  us, 
our  ill-success  will  not  destroy  us.'  Lay  these 
words  to  heart ;  be  a  vessel  meet  for  the  Master's 
use ;  and  none  of  your  words  shall  fall  to  the 
ground. — Affectionately  yours,  BARNABAS. 


XIX 

To  a  Minister  who  has  warned  his  People 
against  '  Intellectual  Preaching ' 


To  A  Minister  who  has  warned  his  People 
AGAINST  'Intellectual  Preaching' 

Dear  Mr.  Dovedale,— At  our  social  meeting 
on  Wednesday  evening  we  listened  to  an  earnest 
address  from  you  on  the  snares  of  intellectual 
preaching.  This  is  a  subject  to  which  you 
frequently  return,  and  you  have  often  reproached 
us  with  the  example  of  your  former  congregation, 
who  'expected  no  swelling  words  of  man's  wisdom, 
but  were  content  with  the  simple  proclamation  ot 
the  Gospel.'  We,  as  a  city  church,  are  in  your 
opinion  peculiarly  exposed  to  the  temptation  of 
exalting  the  intellect.  But  congregations  in  all 
parts  of  the  country  are  demanding  more  and 
more  from  their  ministers,  until  the  danger  is, 
as  you  express  it,  '  that  the  house  of  God  should 
become  a  mere  hotbed  of  culture.' 

'There   are    certain    things,'    you    told   us   on 
Wednesday   evening,   *  which    no   church    has    a 

235 


236  THE  CLERICAL  LIFE 

right  to  expect  from  its  pastor.  I  am  not  here 
to  minister  to  your  mental  gratification.  The 
Apostles  themselves  refused  to  follow  "cunningly 
devised  fables,"  by  which  in  our  day  they  would 
have  understood  the  greater  part  of  modern 
literature,  especially  the  vast  portion  which  comes 
under  the  head  of  novels.  Yet  there  are  preachers 
not  a  few  who,  turning  away  from  the  Scriptures, 
seek  their  own  spiritual  nourishment  and  the 
nourishment  of  their  people  from  novels  and 
even  from  newspapers.  I  grieve  to  make  such 
assertions  against  my  brethren,  but  the  instances 
are  many,  and  the  people  love  to  have  it  so. 
Then,  again,  it  is  expected  that  the  preacher  shall 
encroach  upon  the  sphere  of  the  politician  and 
devise  remedies  for  social  evils.  He  is  required 
to  keep  himself  abreast  of  the  periodical  literature 
of  the  day — a  task  before  which  the  boldest 
might  shrink,  and  one  which  a  Christian  con- 
gregation has  no  right  to  impose.  I  tell  you 
frankly  that  when  I  stand  at  a  railway  bookstall 
and  see  the  multitude  of  newspapers,  magazines, 
and  reviews  which  lie  spread  out  as  tempting 
baits  before  the  public  eye,  I  am  haunted  by  the 


THE  CLERICAL  LIFE  237 

sad  change  which  this  flood  of  ephemeral  litera- 
ture betokens  in  our  modern  life.  In  my  boyhood 
we  read  a  newspaper  once  a  week,  and  a  single 
magazine  supplied  us  with  abundant  interest  for 
a  month.  We  read  little,  but  we  meditated 
much.  Now  I  go  into  your  homes,  and  I  see 
the  Nifieteentk  Century  and  the  Contemporary  and 
the  Fortnightly  lying  on  your  tables,  and  you  are 
astonished  that  I  have  not  mastered  the  contents 
of  these  reviews.  Even  on  the  day  of  publication 
I  have  been  asked  by  my  younger  members 
whether  I  have  read  such  and  such  an  article 
from  the  magazines.  I  have  even  detected  a 
shade  of  supercilious  scorn  in  your  faces  when  I 
have  answered  that  my  time  is  too  valuable  to  be 
wasted  with  such  trifles.  Dear  friends,  I  am  not 
ashamed  to  inform  you  that  I  have  a  hearty 
contempt  for  modern  journalism  in  all  its  branches. 
It  has  lowered  the  life  of  the  nation  and  im- 
poverished the  life  of  the  Church.  Where  do 
we  now  find  that  patient  study  of  the  Scriptures 
which  was  the  business  and  delight  of  our 
ancestors  ?  The  newspaper  is  mastered  at  the 
breakfast  table,  instead  of  being  kept,  as  it  ought 


238  THE  CLERICAL  LIFE 

to  be,  as  a  recreation  for  the  tired  brain  when  the 
work  of  the  day  is  over.  I  have  reason  to  believe 
that  many  of  my  young  men  spend  no  incon- 
siderable sum  on  evening  papers.  While  I  would 
not  of  course  venture  to  dictate  to  them,  I  may 
be  pardoned  for  suggesting  that  the  money  thus 
wasted  might  with  far  greater  benefit  be  devoted 
to  helping  the  schemes  of  the  Church. 

*  In  any  case,'  you  proceeded,  '  my  people  must 
not  expect  me  to  bury  myself  under  a  drift  of 
penny  and  halfpenny  newspapers.  A  venerable 
friend  asked  me  last  week  what  I  thought  of 
Cardinal  Vaughan's  reply  to  Mr.  Birrell.  I  was 
not  aware  what  he  referred  to,  but  I  answered 
that  our  own  denomination  provides  so  many 
points  of  interest  that  I  do  not  observe  minutely 
what  the  Roman  Catholics  are  doing.  This  is 
merely  one  specimen  of  the  troublesome  and 
annoying  inquiries  to  which  I  am  continually 
exposed.' 

Next  you  went  on  to  deal  with  the  request  of 
the  young  men's  Bible  Class  that  you  would  give 

a  series  of  evening  sermons  on  Dr. 's  great 

work  on  Modern  Theology.     *  I  have  refused  this 


THE  CLERICAL  LIFE  239 

request  for  various  reasons,  each  of  which  is  in 
itself  sufficient.  For  one  thing,  I  have  not  read 
the  work  in  question,  and  have  not  leisure  to 
undertake  so  formidable  a  task.  Profound  theo- 
logical study  is  no  more  necessary  for  a  preacher 
than  the  daily  study  of  the  newspapers.  He  has 
to  minister  to  the  poor  and  needy,  and  his  words 
must  therefore  be  the  plainest,  simplest  he  can 
find.  I  am  sorry  that  my  congregation  expect 
deep  doctrine  and  abstruse  thinking  from  this 
pulpit,  because  it  is  beyond  my  power  to  gratify 
them.  A  further  reason  why  I  have  refused  to 
preach  on  this  book  is  that  I  wish  to  discourage 
young  men  from  poring  over  theological  and 
critical  works.  These  books,  even  when  written, 
as  they  sometimes  are,  by  devout  and  earnest 
men,  have  a  bad  effect  on  young  minds.  They 
raise  doubts  which  but  for  them  would  never 
have  troubled  the  clear  sky  of  faith.  I  would 
suggest  that  the  young  men  of  this  church  should 
read  less,  and  give  more  attention  to  the  musical 
part  of  our  worship.  The  choir  greatly  needs 
reinforcement,  and  our  choirmaster  will  be  glad 
to  receive  the  names  of  helpers.     Many  of  you,  I 


240  THE  CLERICAL  LIFE 

am  sure,  would  be  wise  to  devote  a  little  time  to 
gymnastics  in  the  evening.  If  you  must  read, 
choose  first  the  greatest  authors.  Do  not  study 
Tennyson  till  you  have  mastered  Shakespeare. 
Follow  the  example  of  the  man  who  said  that 
when  a  new  book  was  published  he  read  an  old 
one.  Above  all,  do  not  forget  the  wise  saying  of 
Solomon  that  "  much  study  is  a  weariness  of  the 
flesh,"  showing  clearly  that  in  his  opinion  life  was 
given  us  for  nobler  purposes  than  reading.' 

As  a  corollary  to  your  speech  on  Wednesday, 
we  have  the  address  you  delivered  at  the  autumn 
gathering  of  the  Union,  on  '  What  Congregations 
may  reasonably  expect  from  their  Pastors.'  If  I 
remember  rightly,  you  drew  up  a  very  interesting 
list  of  ministerial  duties.  Especially  you  dwelt 
on  the  importance  of  visiting.  It  was  your 
privilege  to  minister  to  one  of  the  most  cultured 
and  intelligent  congregations  in  London,  and 
though  it  was  no  easy  matter  to  keep  up  to  the 
level  of  their  intellectual  requirements,  still  they 
were  inclined  to  pardon  much  in  a  minister  who 
neglected  his  study  for  the  work  of  pastoral 
visitation.      Half  an  hour's  pleasant  chat  had  a 


THE  CLERICAL  LIFE  241 

better  and  more  lasting  effect  than  the  weightiest 
and  most  learned  discourse.  *  It  is  useless  to 
deny,  brethren/  you  went  on,  'that  many  of  us 
middle  -  aged  ministers  have  small  Latin,  less 
Greek,  and  no  Hebrew.  Our  college  days  lie 
far  behind  us,  and  we  should  be  puzzled,  I 
imagine,  if  we  were  asked  to  construe  a  page  of 
Virgil  or  Sophocles.  Are  we  for  that  reason  less 
valuable  or  less  efficient  workers  ?  I  say  we  are 
more  valuable  and  more  efficient,  and  many 
passages  from  the  New  Testament  might  be 
quoted  in  support  of  my  contention.  "Not  the 
wisdom  of  this  world "  is  a  motto  which  might 
well  be  inscribed  over  every  pastor's  writing-table. 
The  less  we  are  burdened  with  earthly  learning, 
the  more  we  shall  be  thrown  back  for  our 
inspiration  upon  the  Scriptures.  Take,  for  ex- 
ample, our  relations  to  the  Higher  Criticism.  I 
have  told  my  people  frankly  that  in  this  matter 
I  should  observe  an  attitude  of  the  strictest 
neutrality.  I  should  neither  condemn  the  Higher 
Criticism  nor  defend  it,  and  in  order  to  escape 
temptation,  I  have  refrained  from  any  examination 
of  critical  writings.     ''The  empty  traveller,"  as 

Q 


242  THE  CLERICAL  LIFE 

the  old  proverb  has  it,  *'  can  laugh  in  the  robber's 
face,"  and  the  man  who  declines  to  fill  his  brain 
with  the  air-woven  speculations  of  the  critics  has 
nothing  to  fear  from  their  assaults.  There  is 
truth,  as  well  as  humour,  in  the  suggestion  that 
we  should  look  a  difficulty  fairly  in  the  face  and 
pass  on,  but,  for  my  part,  I  would  have  my 
brethren  pass  on  without  looking.' 

I  have  quoted  at  some  length  from  these  two 
speeches,  both  of  which  I  had  the  pleasure  of 
hearing,  in  order  that,  if  I  have  misapprehended 
your  meaning  on  any  point,  you  might  have  an 
opportunity  of  correcting  me.  In  reply,  I  would 
first  point  out  your  mistake  in  supposing  that  we 
are  a  specially  cultured  and  intellectual  people. 
We  are  an  ordinary  congregation,  made  up 
largely  of  business  men,  who  have  received  an 
average  education  and  who  read  neither  more  nor 
less  than  the  ordinary  middle-class  Londoner. 
In  the  next  place,  it  is  a  great  mistake  to  imagine 
that  either  we  or  any  other  congregation  that  I 
know  of  expect  intellectual  preaching.  We  may 
look  back  wistfully  to  the  great  men  whom  we 
remember  in  our  boyhood,  or  of  whom  our  fathers 


THE  CLERICAL  LIFE  243 

have  told  us.  We  may  wonder  how  it  is  that 
these  men  have  left  few  successors.  Sometimes 
we  may  regret  that  our  children  will  not  have 
such  opportunities  as  we  enjoyed.  But  we  expect 
very  little  nowadays.  Thirty  years  ago  there 
were  in  the  London  pulpit  at  least  twenty  men 
whose  sermons  might  have  taken  the  rank  of 
classics.  They  were  not  confined  to  one  or  two 
denominations,  but  were  found  in  the  Church  of 
England  and  in  all  the  Nonconformist  bodies. 
We  take  down  their  volumes  from  our  shelves, 
and  wonder  whether  the  genius  of  the  pulpit  has 
died  utterly  away.  A  few  still  remain  with  us, 
but  the  walls  of  their  churches  cannot  be  widened 
to  contain  the  whole  of  London.  Are  there  any 
others  coming  up  behind  them  ?  How  many 
among  the  younger  men  will  exert  as  wide  an 
influence? 

To  my  mind,  the  most  remarkable  sign  of  the 
times  is  that  congregations  are  willing  to  be 
satisfied  with  so  little.  The  education  of  the 
general  community  is  far  ahead  of  what  it  was  in 
my  boyhood,  but  preachers  are  making  no  effort 
to  keep  abreast  of  the  wider  knowledge  of  their 


244  THE  CLERICAL  LIFE 

people.  Suppose  that  all  the  sermons  preached 
in  London  on  any  particular  Sunday  could  be 
reported  and  submitted  to  a  competent  judge, 
how  many  would  he  select  as  fit  for  print?  The 
laity,  it  seems  to  me,  are  very  generous  to 
ministers.  They  know  that  many  sermons  are 
feeble,  but  they  consider  the  heavy  burden  of 
outside  work  that  falls  upon  the  pastor,  and 
judge  his  preaching  leniently.  It  seems  a  little 
hard  that  the  men  for  whom  we  are  making  these 
allowances  should  warn  us  with  such  solemn 
emphasis  against  the  perils  and  snares  which 
beset  the  lover  of  intellectual  preaching.         X. 


XX 

To  a  Minister  who  inclines  to  Condescension 


To  A  Minister  who  inclines  to 
Condescension 

Dear  Mr.  Sunderland, — In  the  time  of  your 
predecessor,  Dr.  Vernon,  our  congregation  was  in 
danger  of  holding  too  high  an  opinion  of  itself. 
Dr.  Vernon  liked  to  flatter  us  with  such  phrases 
as  this  :  '  I  can  never  forget  that  I  am  addressing 
one  of  the  most  cultured  and  intelligent  congre- 
gations in  England.'  Dr.  Vernon  invariably 
assumed  that  his  people  had  read  the  books 
that  he  had  read,  and  were  in  all  respects  his 
intellectual  equals.  During  the  two  years  of 
your  ministry  amongst  us,  you  have  done  much 
to  rectify  this  mistake. 

You  take  it  for  granted  that  we  have  little  or 
no  knowledge  of  the  Bible,  or  of  Eastern  customs. 
*  Many  of  my  hearers  must  wonder,'  you  remarked 
some  weeks  ago,  '  when  they  hear  of  conversations 
taking  place  and  of  business  being  transacted  on 

247 


248  THE  CLERICAL  LIFE 

the  roofs  of  houses.  How  was  this  possible  ?  you 
inquire,  remembering  the  sloping  slated  roofs  to 
which  we  are  accustomed  in  England.  We  are 
apt  to  forget  that  in  the  East  all  the  roofs  are 
flat,  and  that  they  were  used  for  much  of  the 
most  important  business  of  the  household.' 

You  explained  to  us  in  full  detail  how  it  was 
that  the  labourers  in  the  market-place  could  hire 
themselves  for  so  low  a  sum  as  a  penny  a  day. 
*Even  the  poorest  man  who  now  listens  to  me 
would  rate  his  services  higher  than  this ;  in  fact, 
we  all  know  that  under  present  conditions  human 
life  could  not  be  supported  on  so  low  a  sum.  But 
a  flood  of  light  falls  on  the  passage  when  we 
remember  that  a  Roman  denarius  or  penny  was 
equal  to  7jd.  of  our  coinage,  and  also  that  money 
in  New  Testament  times  had  a  much  higher 
value  than  it  has  with  us.'  In  a  sermon  on  the 
good  Samaritan,  you  expounded  with  much  care 
the  puzzling  verse  about  '  pouring  in  oil  and  wine.* 
^  Many  of  my  hearers,  no  doubt,  imagine  that 
the  oil  and  wine  were  both  poured  into  the 
wounds  of  the  unfortunate  traveller ;  but  a 
moment's   consideration  will  show  you  that  this 


THE  CLERICAL  LIFE  249 

would  only  tend  to  aggravate  his  sufferings.  The 
oil  was  poured  into  his  wounds,  and  the  wine  into 
his  mouth/  Dealing  with  the  same  parable, 
you  informed  us  that  roads  in  Palestine  were  very 
different  from  the  highroads  of  England.  They 
were  infested  with  robbers,  and  even  in  modern 
times  many  travellers  had  perished  on  the  road 
between  Jerusalem  and  Jericho.  You  delight  in 
explaining  such  expressions  as  '  a  shoe's  latchet,' 
just  as  if  none  of  us  had  ever  attended  Sunday- 
school.  *  The  Orientals,  dear  friends,  do  not  wear 
boots  or  shoes,  but  on  account  of  their  hot 
climate,  are  content  with  sandals.  The  latchet  of 
the  sandal  must  not  therefore  be  confounded  with 
the  ordinary  boot-lace.'  '  Witness-bearing  among 
the  Jews'  was  the  subject  of  one  of  your  most 
instructive  sermons,  but  you  need  not  have 
assumed  that  every  one  in  the  congregation 
believed  that  the  ancient  Hebrews  had  trial  by 
jury.  In  a  course  of  lectures  on  the  wilderness 
journey  of  the  Israelites,  we  came  to  the  verse, '  a 
land  flowing  with  milk  and  honey.'  *  To  many  of 
my  hearers  these  words  must  present  insuperable 
difficulties.     How  can  a  land  be  said  to  flow  with 


250  THE  CLERICAL  LIFE 

milk  and  honey?'  But  the  difficulty  vanishes 
when  we  remember  that  the  Old  Testament 
writers  frequently  used  the  language  of  hyperbole 
— a  long  word,  brethren,  but  it  means  a  figure  of 
speech  which  involves  exaggeration — and  in  this 
glowing  sentence  the  ancient  chronicler  means 
to  set  before  us  a  land  of  vast  wealth  and  of 
boundless  fertility/ 

'The  Murmurings  of  the  Israelites*  was  the 
theme  of  a  recent  discourse,  and  you  remarked 
that  an  English  congregation  could  with  difficulty 
understand  why  the  Hebrews  in  the  desert  were 
always  clamouring  for  water.  *  In  our  damp  and 
rainy  climate  we  cannot  even  imagine  the  suffer- 
ings of  travellers  in  these  arid,  sandy  regions, 
where  the  parched  soil  yields  not  a  drop  of  water, 
and  where  the  deceitful  mirage  lures  the  wan- 
derer to  his  doom.' 

*The  decree  of  Caesar  Augustus,  that  all  the 
world  should  be  taxed,'  furnished  a  noble  subject 
for  your  explanatory  genius.  'Those  of  my 
hearers  who  are  themselves  taxpayers  must  fre- 
quently in  reading  this  verse  have  reflected  on  the 
vast  revenue  which  the  taxing  of  the  whole  world 


THE  CLERICAL  LIFE  251 

must  have  brought  into  the  coffers  of  Augustus. 
You  will  be  astonished  when  I  tell  you  that  this 
"taxing  "  was  not  a  payment  of  money,  but  merely 
the  taking  of  a  census — in  simple  words,  a  num- 
bering of  the  people — a  process  to  which  we  our- 
selves are  accustomed  every  tenth  year.* 

Every  one  must  appreciate  your  anxiety  that 
we  should  make  no  mistake  as  to  the  meaning  of 
Scriptural  language.  Not  many  months  ago  you 
chose  as  your  text,  '  If  any  man  speak,  let  him 
speak  as  the  oracles  of  God.'  *  I  have  no  doubt, 
friends,  that  the  word  "oracles"  awakes  misgivings 
in  the  minds  of  many  of  you.  The  thoughts  of 
my  more  cultured  hearers  will  be  carried  back  to 
Delphi  or  Dodona,  to  the  voice  of  the  priestess  of 
Apollo,  or  the  whisperings  of  the  god  through  the 
leaves  of  the  mulberry  trees.  Even  those  who  know 
little  of  classical  mythology  may  feel  that  the  word 
"oracles"  has  a  remote  and  pagan  meaning.  Let 
me  therefore  explain  exactly  what  the  Apostle 
had  in  his  mind  when  he  used  this  expression.' 

Shall  we  ever  forget  how  laboriously  you 
explained  the  meaning  of  the  word  "Selah," 
when    it  occurred  in  your  first  exposition  of  a 


252  THE  CLERICAL  LIFE 

Psalm  ?  *  It  may  have  struck  the  more  attentive 
Bible  students  among  you  that  there  are  not  a 
few  Hebrew  words  scattered  up  and  down  the 
Old  Testament.  One  of  these  is  '^Selah."  It 
signifies  "  a  solemn  pause " — perhaps  a  rest 
between  two  bars  of  music.  When  it  occurs 
in  the  reading  of  a  Psalm  at  family  worship, 
do  not  say  the  word  aloud,  but  make  a  longer 
pause  than  usual  before  passing  on  to  the 
following  verse.' 

It  was  scarcely  surprising  that  we  should  not 
know  why  treasures  were  found  in  the  fields  of 
Palestine,  when  the  most  careful  searcher  would 
fail  to  find  them  in  England.  But  you  might,  I 
think,  have  assumed  that  we  knew  that  Eastern 
shepherds  went  before  their  flocks.  I  could 
multiply  without  end  examples  of  your  conde- 
scending habit  in  the  elucidation  of  Scripture, 
but  this  is  by  no  means  the  only  department  in 
which  our  ignorance  distresses  you. 

At  the  Mutual  Improvement  Society  last 
winter  you  gave  a  series  of  *  very  simple '  lectures 
on  Evolution.  Most  ministers,  you  told  us,  were 
content  to  leave  this  thorny  question  alone,  but 


THE  CLERICAL  LIFE  253 

you  preferred  that  the  young  men  of  your  congre- 
gation should  not  remain  entirely  ignorant  of  the 
march  of  science.  I  must  apologise  for  quoting 
the  opening  sentences  of  your  first  lecture  as  given 
in  the  local  paper  of  that  week,  for  they  are  an 
excellent  specimen  of  your  general  method. 
'  The  word  Evolution  is  to  many  of  you  a  hard, 
a  dubious,  and  a  meaningless  word.  You  connect 
it  in  some  vague  manner  with  the  names  of 
Darwin,  of  Huxley,  of  Tyndall,  but  if  you  were 
asked  for  a  definition,  you  would  be  hopelessly 
nonplussed.  I  want  you,  therefore,  to  write  down 
in  your  notebooks  that  "  evolution  "  comes  from 
the  Latin  ^,  out  of,  and  volvo,  I  roll,  and  that  it 
means  a  gradual  rolling  out,  unfolding  or  progres- 
sion of  things  from  a  lower  to  a  higher  plane.' 
Mr.  Hilditch,  who  is  one  of  the  most  active 
members  of  the  Society,  and  a  B.Sc.  of  London 
University,  attended  the  first  of  the  lectures,  but 
he  told  me  he  would  not  be  able  to  find  time  for 
the  remainder  of  the  course. 

Our  congregation  is  much  interested  in  foreign 
missions,  and  it  was  an  excellent  innovation  on 
your  part  to  give  a  missionary  sermon  once  a 


254  THE  CLERICAL  LIFE 

month.  Many  of  the  members  have,  however, 
been  annoyed  because  you  found  it  necessary  to 
name  the  exact  locality  of  every  mission  station. 
It  is  not  only  that  you  point  out  such  places  as 
Pekin  and  Calcutta  on  the  map  behind  the  plat- 
form, but  you  take  it  for  granted  that  we  have  heard 
of  very  few  places  outside  the  British  Islands. 
'  How  many  of  my  hearers,  I  wonder,  could  put 
their  fingers  on  the  Fiji  Islands,  one  of  the  most 
hopeful  of  mission  fields  ? '  '  The  great  river 
Congo  flows  westward  like  the  Niger,  and,  like 
the  Niger,  loses  itself  in  the  Atlantic  Ocean.' 

In  everything  that  concerns  modern  literature 
you  take  it  for  granted  that  we  are  sunk  in  a 
depth  of  ignorance  which  no  Fiji  Islander  could 
surpass.  You  never  quote  the  simplest  phrase 
from  Tennyson  without  remarking  that  *  some  of 
the  congregation  may  recognise  those  lines  as 
the  work  of  the  great  Laureate  who  was  recently 
taken  from  us.'  We  appreciate  the  kind  interest 
you  have  always  shown  in  our  reading,  but  is  it 
necessary  to  assume  that  we  must  start  from  the 
very  foundation  ?  *  Milton  is  a  poet  little  read 
nowadays  ;   perhaps  I  may  conjecture   that   not 


THE  CLERICAL  LIFE  255 

five  persons  in  this  congregation  have  ever 
reached  the  end  of  Paradise  Lost'  *  It  is  an 
amazing  fact  that  hardly  any  one  nowadays  seems 
to  read  Sir  Walter  Scott.'  For  this  winter  you 
have  plinned  a  series  of  '  Elementary  Browning 
Studies/  and  we  are  all  looking  forward  with 
interest  to  the  first  lecture,  on  *  The  Pied  Piper 
of  Hamelin.' 

In  justice  I  must  admit  that  there  are  certain 
subjects  on  which  you  concede  to  us  a  full  and 
ample  knowledge.  Women  are  supposed  to  be 
experts  in  all  that  concerns  the  household,  and 
men  to  have  an  accurate  knowledge  of  the 
drudgery  of  business.  These  are  matters  on 
which  you  sit  at  our  feet,  as  we  must  sit  at 
yours  in  all  that  concerns  a  liberal  education. 
I  was  present  at  your  address  to  the  mothers' 
meeting  last  Friday,  and  was  interested  to  see 
that  you  had  no  domestic  advice  to  give  them. 
*  Dear  sisters,  you  know  much  better  than  I  where 
the  home  burden  presses.  You  know  what  it  is 
to  rise  early  and  sit  up  late,  and  to  eat  the  bread 
of  carefulness.  You  have  experienced  the  toil 
and   struggle  which  it  costs  to  keep  the  house 


256  THE  CLERICAL  LIFE 

sweet  and  beautiful,  and  to  have  the  meals  ready 
against  your  husband's  return.  You  need  no 
counsel  and  no  instruction  as  to  your  household 
duties.'  Then  you  proceeded  to  advise  the  working 
men's  wives  not  to  waste  their  time  on  stories 
brought  home  by  their  children  from  the  Sunday- 
school  library,  but  to  nourish  their  minds  on  the 
great  English  classics.  The  business  men  in  the 
church  rather  resent  your  assumption  that  they 
are  minutely  acquainted  with  the  shady  side 
of  London  commerce.  If  ever  there  is  a  financial 
crash  in  the  City,  you  take  the  opportunity  of 
assuring  us  that  we  must  know  many  scoundrels 
quite  as  bad  as  those  who  are  now  detected. 
Apart  from  disagreeable  hints  of  this  kind,  we 
feel  that  you  need  not  be  so  pathetic  in  your  de- 
scriptions of  our  City  life.  Old  Mr.  Arnold,  who 
received  a  clock  from  the  Sunday-school  on  the 
occasion  of  his  business  jubilee,  was  quite  cross 
because  of  the  pitying  tone  in  which  you  described 
his  life.  *  Have  you  ever  thought,  children,  what 
sacrifices  a  man  like  Mr.  Arnold  must  have  made, 
in  order  to  be  punctual  morning  after  morning  in 
the  city  during  fifty  years?     In  rain  and  snow. 


THE  CLERICAL  LIFE  257 

in  storm  and  sunshine,  he  has  had  to  shoulder  his 
daily  burden  and  go  forth  with  the  vast  army  of 
toilers.  Mr.  Arnold  could  tell  us  much  about  the 
sorrows,  the  disappointments,  the  trials  of  a 
merchant  in  the  City  of  London.  He  has  come 
through  anxieties  of  which  we  happily  know 
nothing,  and  has  worn  throughout  them  all  the 
white  flower  of  a  stainless  character.'  Mr. 
Arnold,  a  stout,  prosperous,  merry  old  gentleman, 
who  inherited  a  splendid  business,  and  who  has 
got  home  comfortably  at  five  o'clock  every 
evening  during  the  last  forty  years,  showed  a  very 
natural  reluctance  to  accept  these  compliments. 

I  wish  to  say  in  conclusion  that  we  cordially 
appreciate  your  many  excellent  gifts,  and  that  we 
fully  understand  that  your  habit  of  condescension 
will  disappear  as  you  grow  older.  The  members 
of  your  church  will  love  you  all  the  better  when 
you  learn  to  treat  them  as  equals.  X. 


Date  Due 

JE5  55 

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1    1012  01032  7676 


